Bethlehem Peace Light Clare Morgan

Bethlehem Peace Light

By Clare Morgan

(Clare Morgan is a third-year nursing student at Newman University in Wichita, KS, who recently served on a week-long service trip to Gallup, NM.)

Some two thousand years ago, a baby boy was born in a stable in Israel. Given to an impoverished family who offered only a humble bed and farm animals to welcome Him, He was nonetheless called “the Light of the human race,” “Light of the World” (John 8:12), and “Morning Star” (Rev 22:16). His Presence in our world serves as a source of hope, joy, love, and peace, as well as a reminder of each person’s calling to be a source of peace and loving service to one another.

Today, this “Light” is still burning in the world in the striking form of a single flame: spreading from Palestine, to Austria, and out to the rest of the Western globe. Representing literally the illumination that Christ’s presence brings to humanity’s darkness, and figuratively the peace that He offers. The exchange of the Bethlehem Peace Light has been an Austrian tradition since 1986.

The Light’s journey begins at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where lamps symbolizing the “Eternal Flame” have been burning as long as anyone can remember. A single flame is lit from the Church of the Nativity, and transported in a shatter-proof miner’s lamp to Vienna, Austria. Once there, representatives from across the continent of Europe meet at a special service to light their lamps from the Peace Light, and carry their precious flames home to parishes, churches, hospitals, elderly care homes, schools, and prisons.

This year, the Peace Light landed in the United States at JFK Airport in New York on December 6th. Passage of the Peace Light to the Americas has been somewhat inconsistent in past years, and yet the significance and symbolism of this gentle light traveling thousands of miles to enter our broken world is not lost on those who welcome its presence here. Upon accepting responsibility for the protection and furtherance of the flame, representatives are encouraged to announce: "We gladly receive this light as a sign of our willingness to be channels of peace, by our words and actions." In this way, the Light not only maintains itself as a visible sign of peace, but also fosters peace and love in personal and familiar interactions.

This year, the Peace Light was brought to the Southwest region of the United States on December 16, 2019. The flame was exchanged at a service in the chapel of Sacred Heart Catholic School in Gallup, NM, witnessed by students, parents, and teachers. The service gave all participants an opportunity to physically welcome Christ into their hearts and their community.

The Light’s journey, from a small chapel in Bethlehem, to churches and places of disease, brokenness, and heartbreak around the globe, represents the spread of Eternal Peace into our world. Yet truly, this Peace does not come just once a year. This Peace is not found only in the light of a delicate flame. It is a Peace that searches us out in the quiet living of our daily lives, in the race of our busy schedules, and the exhaustion at the end of it. It is a Peace that reaches for us, longs for us, and invites us to light in our own hearts a flame of warmth, and light, and love.

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