Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

Light of Life, Light of Death: A Meditation on August 6

In the church year, the feast of the Transfiguration, commemorating the time when Jesus’ face “shone like the sun,” occurs on August 6. At the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John saw the light of divinity shining out in Jesus, the kind of light that brings clarity, joy, peace, warmth, and life.

Twenty centuries later, on August 6, 1945, a very different kind of light appeared on the earth, generated by the first atomic bomb, which blinded, burned, and destroyed roughly a quarter million people. It’s flash of blazing light brought nothing but pain, suffering, and the darkness of despair.

As individuals and as a human family, we have to choose the path in which we will walk. We also have to choose which light will illuminate our path — that which comes from weapons of destruction and the false sense of security such weapons bring, or the light that even today still shines from the face of Christ.