Light

“Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem” Your light has come.”  Isaiah 60:1

 The winter solstice, marking the shortest day of the year, happened two weeks ago on December 21.  Since then, each day we’ve been enjoying a little more light.  Hanukah, symbolized by the menorah, a seven branched candelabra, is known as the festival of lights.  Christmas is a feast of lights.  Trees, real and artificial, made radiant with brilliant lights, become focal points of our homes; our front yards are illuminated, some simply, some elaborately. Christmas Eve mass here at Transfiguration begins with choir members processing into church carrying lit candles.  Scripture readings for Advent and the twelve days of Christmas are filled with references to light.

Today’s readings for the feast of the Epiphany speak of two kinds of light.  Isaiah, in the first reading, promises a light full of hope.  Two hundred years before Christ, Jerusalem was in desperate need of rebuilding, as it had been destroyed, its inhabitants exiled.  The prophet proclaims to the downcast Israelites returning from exile in Babylon: “Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem” Your light has come.”  The darkness of despair has been lifted and a new day of restoration has dawned!

In today’s Gospel from Matthew, the Magi, gentiles of stature from the East, are led to the child by the light of a star.  Whether this was an actual celestial phenomenon, as the narrative suggests, or a metaphor for some other kind of enlightment, it was by divine guidance that they found the child, identified in our Profession of Faith as “Light from Light.”  Thirty years later, the adult Jesus proclaims, “I am the light of the world.”    The feast of the Epiphany emphasizes that God's light, like the dawn at sunrise, entered our dark world on the first Christmas to shine forth for all people of every time and place. 

Jesus is, indeed, the “light of the world,” but he can’t illuminate the whole world all by himself.  That’s because he needs you and me to be light as well.  “You are the light of the world,” he declares in the Sermon on the Mount, referring to you and me, “…Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”  In other words, we too, like him, are to be epiphanies, manifestations of God’s presence in the world.  How?  For Christians and Jews the answer is clear….. by acting compassionately, working for peace and pursing justice -- love, peace and justice, the three pillars of Catholic Social Teaching. 

Here at Transfiguration, we try to put Catholic Social Teaching into practice in a variety of ways.  One way is through our partnership with St. Andrew’s Church, an urban parish located on Portland Avenue, near Norton Street, in the northeast section of Rochester.  This partnership exemplifies one of the eight principles of Catholic Social Teaching – “Solidarity…One Human Family.”  Hence the banner by our baptismal font. Each month from now through August, our 25th Anniversary month, a different principle of Catholic Social Teaching will be featured with its own banner to be displayed upfront in church for that month. 

Quite coincidentally, St. Andrew’s was my childhood parish.  It was there that I made my first penance, first communion and confirmation.  It was there my Boy Scout troop #70 met. It was there I attended religious instruction classes, released early on Tuesday afternoons from nearby #39 School.  My parents gave me the option of attending St Andrew’s School, but at the time its principal was one Sister Dorothea, a stern faced nun, built like a linebacker, who dressed in a pre-Vatican II habit that made her look like a mean penguin.   Rumor, which I know now was grossly exaggerated, had it that she used a yardstick to whack unmercifully the knuckles of naughty little boys, so I opted to attend public school instead.  Rumor also had it that she was much gentler at disciplining naughty little girls.

Times have changed at St. Andrews since I was a boy.  When the church was founded in 1914 it was located in a predominately German American working class neighborhood.   Forty years later in the nineteen fifties, when I was haunting its halls, it was in a predominately Italian American working class neighborhood, still lower middle class.  Today, fifty years later it’s located in a multi-ethnic, now lower class neighborhood with a congregation consisting of long-time parishioners and growing numbers of Latinos, African Americans and more recent immigrants. 

Some of its parishioners, comprising about 500 families, struggle with poverty and related social issues like crime, family dysfunction, and drug abuse.   Nearby Annunciation Church, located on Norton Street near Goodman, where my mother used to attend because, at the time, its pastor, Monsignor Simonetti, celebrated one Mass in Italian each Sunday, is now clustered with St. Andrew’s. The two parishes share one pastor, Fr. Mike Mayer, one deacon, Bob Meyer, one parish council, one administrative staff and one Catholic School, enrollment 125. As an aside in the 1950’s before the priest shortage, both parishes had pastors, assistant pastors and associate pastors, but no deacons. (No deacons, of course, because the Order hadn’t yet been reinstated by Vatican II.)

Over the past 18 months more than 40 of our parishioners have become involved in the life of St. Andrew’s parish.  Some tutor at the school.  Some mentor troubled adolescents.  Some are helping build an on-site playground.  Others serve on a planning committee for an after school drop-in center; or volunteer at the basketball camp held each year when school ends in June. 

Some work at the food pantry across the street or help deliver furniture to needy families.  Some visit with folks who are lonely, pray with folks who are hurting -- establishing one on one relationships appreciated beyond measure.  Some go to Mass there once a month or attend special functions.  Many more donate clothes, household items, money, Thanksgiving meals and Christmas gifts.  And the list goes on. All of our involved parishioners are God’s epiphany, God’s light, for parishioners at St. Andrew’s, demonstrating that, indeed,  we all are one human family.

Christmas, obviously, is not just the celebration of our Savior’s birth, but a reminder of the twin purposes for his coming; first, to invite us to God's eternal friendship and second, to fulfill Isaiah’s vision of God’s kingdom on earth where the lion lies down with the lamb; where love, peace and justice prevail for everyone.

Are you looking to make a New Year’s resolution that keeps the Christmas spirit alive year round, puts a human face on Catholic Social Teaching, and, increases your candlepower?  If so, contact a member of our Peace and Justice Coordinating Group listed on the kiosk closest to the Parish Life Center in the gathering hall or, if you’re not technologically challenged like our former pastor was, go to our parish website and click on the Peace and Justice tab, St Andrews Project.

Now that the winter solstice is past and each day we can look forward to a little more light, what an opportune time to consider how we might generate a little more as well.

Anthony J. Sciolino
Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12 4:12-23. 
Epiphany of the Lord. 
January 6, 2007. (Cycle A)