Are we answering the call to ‘be’ light to the world?

Got a light?

Not so long ago, that was a common question in a world where people unabashedly smoked cigars, cigarettes and pipes. It meant: Got a match? Or a lighter? It was usually muttered as a mumble by some guy with a cigarette already between his lips. (Watch any old movie on TCM and you’ll see what I mean.)

Now that public smoking has gone the way of public telephones — again, watch old movies to see what I’m talking about — I think this question has a new resonance for Christians, offering us a way to look at our lives.

Here, in three little words, we find what

Deacon Greg Kandra

amounts to a potent examination of conscience. Are we giving off light? Affirmation? Hope?

Looked at another way: Are we still on fire with the flame we received at baptism? Or has the spark started to sputter and fade?

As we slide deeper into Ordinary Time — and for much of the world, deeper into the icy grip of winter — this is no small concern. Consider the very element we’re talking about. Light throws off illumination, warmth and energy. It scatters shadows and dispels fear. It makes it possible to see.

And if we look hard enough, we see something central to our lives as disciples. Our call as Christians is nothing less than to “be” light, drawing on the source of light, Jesus Christ, to give encouragement and hope to a world that so

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Christians must not “put pressure on others” to convert or induce in them “feelings of guilt,” but take a weight off their shoulders through joyfully sharing the Gospel, Pope Francis said.

At his general audience Jan. 25, the pope explained that Jesus frees people from all forms of oppression and that this often feels discouraged and hopeless.

This is a good moment to look within and ask: Are we answering the call? Do we give off light?

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus refers to light, and he makes “being” light, and sharing it with the world, a sacred command.

In the Christian school of discipleship, being light is not an elective. It is a requirement — a “must.”

“Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”

In the beginning, in Genesis, God’s first recorded words in Scripture announce what the Creator wants and what his creation freedom is cause for joy.

“Oppressed is the one who feels crushed by something that happens in life: illness, struggles, burdens on the heart, feelings of guilt, errors, vices, sins,” said Pope Francis. “Let us think, for example, about feelings of guilt. How many of us have suffered from this?” He said, “If someone feels guilty about something they did and they feel bad, the good news is that with Jesus this ancient needs: “Let there be light.” evil of sin, which seems unbeatable, no longer has the last word.”

But our human capacity for sin soon cast a pall over creation. And so, God whispered those words again, sending a new light into the world through Christ.

In these first weeks of a new year, we hear about the early days of Christ’s ministry and realize once more how we are meant to carry the light of Christ into places of darkness and pain.

This Sunday, let’s look anew at our lives — at what we have done and what we have failed to do — and ask ourselves the question that we don’t hear often anymore, but that still demands an answer: Got a light?

In fact, “God forgets all of our sins, he has no memory of them,” the pope said. Even if someone repeatedly commits the same sins, God also “will always do the same thing: forgive you, embrace you.”

Pope Francis added that Christians must be joyful in sharing the Gospel, since “the faith is a stupendous love story to be shared.”