I am inspired by what the new pope focuses on and what he stands for. He is seventy-seven years old, and I only hope that he will live a long time so that the Catholic church can undergo the renewal that it sorely needs. Sometimes when I watch him or read about what he has said, I wonder if we are not witnessing a miracle within an (imperfect) man happening before our eyes. He does not strike me at all as a false person.
In my post yesterday, I wrote that I wanted to focus in 2014 on lighting one candle as the better way rather than cursing the darkness. It is so easy to get discouraged and to give up. But today at Christmas mass, my heart felt free and released from worry (a seldom occurrence in these days of work stress). My heart felt light, both in the sense of being illuminated but also of being lighter in weight. And then I read the news online that the new pope had called Jesus "the light who brightens the darkness" in his Christmas sermon. And I thought that maybe that's what I felt this morning at mass.
The pope also said that "there are both bright and dark moments, lights and shadows", and that "if our hearts are closed, if we are dominated by pride, deceit, self-seeking, then darkness falls within us and around us." It all somehow made sense to me in that way when you suddenly 'understand'. And then I thought that I would try to find some other quotes about light, because this morning, for me, it was as though a light switch got turned on again inside of me. And that feeling has not left me today at all.
“Darkness
cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate:
only love can do that.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
“There
is a crack in everything.
That's
how the light gets in.” ― Leonard Cohen
“How far
that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.” ―
William Shakespeare
“There
are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the
light of all lights.”
― Bram
Stoker
“As we
work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.”
― Mary
Anne Radmacher
“Fear
can only grow in darkness. Once you face fear with light, you win.”
― Steve
Maraboli
“I've
learned recently to love imperfection a lot because it shines such a big light
on God's grace. And if someone has grace for you that's when you feel their
love the most and they see you for who you are and they love you anyway.”
― Lacey Mosley
― Lacey Mosley
“Love is
not consolation. It is light.”
― Simone
Weil
“You
have to find what sparks a light in you so that you in your own way can
illuminate the world.”
― Oprah
Winfrey
“Because
I was more often happy for other people, I got to spend more time being happy.
And as I saw more light in everybody else, I seemed to have more myself.”
―
Victoria Moran
“My
first memory is of light -- the brightness of light -- light all around.”
―
Georgia O'Keeffe
