RESPONDING TO THE LIGHT
According to the great theologian Paul Tillich, the great tragedy of modern man is to have lost the dimension of profundity.
We’re no longer capable of asking where we’re from and where we’re going. We don’t know how to ask ourselves about what we do and ought to do with ourselves in this brief span of time between birth and death.
These questions don’t find any answer in many men and women of today. Even more, they aren’t even raised when we’ve lost that «dimension of profundity» Today’s generations no longer have the courage to seriously and deeply ask these questions which past generations have done. We prefer to go on walking through the darkness.
That’s why in these times we need to go back and remember that to be a believer means above all to passionately question the meaning of our life and be open to an answer, even though we don’t see it clearly or precisely.
The story of the Magi has been seen by the Fathers of the Church as an example of a few men who, though they lived in the darkness of paganism, were capable of faithfully responding to the light that called them to faith. They are men who, by their actions, invite us to listen to every call that urges us to walk faithfully toward Christ.
All too often it seems that our life is too short. Work, contact, problems, meetings, various activities blow us around, and life passes, filling each instant with something we need to do, say, see or plan.
We thus run the risk of losing our proper identity, becoming just one more thing among other things, and living without ever knowing what direction to go. Is there a light capable of guiding our existence? Is there an answer to our deepest dreams and aspirations? From the perspective of Christian faith, that answer exists. That light now shines in that Child born in Bethlehem.
What’s important is being conscious of living in darkness, of having lost the fundamental sense of life. Whoever recognizes this doesn’t find self far from beginning a search for the true path.
Would that throughout our daily living we never lose the capability of being open to every light that can illuminate our existence, to every call that can give profundity to our life.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
