Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

Preferring the Darkness (Lent 4)

When I was a kid, I loved summer nights when the temperature finally went below 90 degrees, a breeze came up, and light from old style streetlights filtered through the leaves of the elm trees on our block. Such nights would find me sitting on our front porch listening to my small transistor radio, just enjoying the dark. Now, on summer nights when I sit in my room with only a small candle burning, smoking my pipe near an open window, and listening to jazz from my laptop, I am as content as I was all those years ago, loving the peaceful darkness.

But that’s not the kind of darkness Jesus is talking about in the reading for this 4th Sunday of Lent. He’s talking about the kind of darkness where thieves and murderers lurk, the darkness that hides evil deeds. He’s also talking about the darkness we live in when we hide our jealousy under masks of false friendship, our greed under the disguise of hard work and thriftiness, our desire to run other people’s lives by claiming we’re only doing what’s best for them. He’s talking about the darkness we create whenever we turn away from justice, truth, and love. Sad to say, some of us prefer that kind of darkness rather than the light of honest living.

During this fourth week of Lent, ask where the darkness might be in your life and how, with God’s help, you may dispel it with the brightness of God’s light.