Lumen Fidei: Mirroring God

Last updated on: December 23, 2014 at 5:38 pm by willduquette

Lumen Fidei: Mirroring God 2014-12-23T17:38:19-05:00 willduquette

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In paragraph 35 of Lumen Fidei I find this interesting comment. Pope Francis is saying that the light of faith in Christ illuminates the path of all men who seek Him with a sincere heart. He says, speaking of the star that appeared to the Magi,

The star is a sign of God’s patience with our eyes which need to grow accustomed to his brightness. Religous man is a wayfarer; he must be ready to let himself be led, to come out of himself, and to find the God of perpetual surprises. This respect on God’s part for our human eyes shows us that when we draw near to God, our human lights are not dissolved in the immensity of his light, as a star is engulfed by the dawn, but shine all the more brightly the closer they approach the primordial fire, like a mirror which reflects light.

(My emphasis)

This makes sense to me. The closer we approach God, the more brightly we shine; and because we are made to approach God, because He is our natural end, the more brightly we shine, the more we are what we are supposed to be, the more we are who we are supposed to be. We are to lose ourselves in him; and yet, even as we do so we are more ourselves. That’s the first thing.

And the second thing is, we shine as a mirror, with reflected light; and the purpose of that light is to illuminate the path before us. And the brighter we shine, the more we can illuminate the path for those around us.

And that makes me ask: am I, in fact, illuminating that path? Or am I darkening it? Am I reflecting God’s light, or am I blocking it? This is something worth pondering.

Lumen Fidei

lumen fidei

Pope Francis

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