Today, in speaking with the priest who has been more helpful to me than any other, my attention was drawn to a few verses in the third chapter of the Gospel according to St. John that I hadn’t really paid heed to in the past. Now, having been raised a Protestant, I had memorized the most famous verse from that chapter in the first grade, if not before. I’ve been through the “born again” verses over and over too.

I hadn’t really looked at verses 19 – 22 before – at least not that I can remember. I reproduce them here from the Douay-Rheims: “And this is the judgment, because the light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved. But he that doth truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God.”

I’ve long struggled with St. John’s light and darkness passages, being acutely aware of the darkness of my own heart – hence my use of the prayer Summe Gloriose Deus. Here, though, there is a place between that light that shines in the darkness that the darkness does not comprehend and that darkness in which there is wailing and gnashing of teeth – there is he who “cometh to the light”. By implication, he isn’t there yet, but he’s on the way. There’s hope.

Like the apostles who proclaimed their love for Jesus only to deny Him in His darkest hour, and even more so, I’ve done evil. Yet I am still drawn to the light. I shudder at the thought of things I’ve done. I don’t love the darkness. I want the darkness to be dispelled. May God in His infinite mercy grant me the grace to persevere in coming to the true light!