21 March 2016 - light up the darkness

[ Today's Readings ]

The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Jesus, you are light. We need to keep you close to us and look to you. Without your light we are as good as blind. With your light we have nothing to fear. Without it is another story. Without it we might as well be prisoners in confinement. We might as well live in a dark dungeon. When we try to move without your light we stumble and fall. Effectively, we're stuck where we are.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path (See Psalm 119:105).

By keeping your word before our eyes we keep you yourself before our eyes, Jesus. And with you before us we stand firm.

I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken (see Psalm 16:8).

This is the only way we can "see the bounty of the LORD in the land of the living." Even now your word is the only light in a dark world. The day is coming when it will cast it out entirely.

And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts (see Second Peter 1:19).

How can we tell if we're paying enough attention to it now? Your word casts out the worldly fear that darkness imposes. It gives freedom. Do we feel fearful or imprisoned? Help us to keep you before us LORD Jesus. Help us to be attentive to your word.

In today's gospel reading Mary shows us how to treasure your word. Where Judas sees a mere resource to be used for a goal Mary sees an opportunity to show affection to one whom she loves.

Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil
made from genuine aromatic nard
and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair;
the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. 

We can treat your word with this same love, LORD Jesus. We can treasure it with this same affection. If we do, assuredly, our houses will be filled with the fragrance of the oil. And here is the best part. We don't even have to buy the oil. We don't have to strike it rich or win the lotto. You yourself give us the oil of the Holy Spirit which we then lavish on you in praise and prayer. There is probably always something more practical to do than to love you Jesus. But at a deeper level, there is nothing more important.

Here and nowhere else is the "victory of justice". Only by waiting on your teaching and by being stouthearted waiting for you does this victory come.