Monday in the 25th Week of Ordinary Time, September 23, 2024

Luke 8, 16-18

Jesus said to the crowd: “No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light. Take care, then, how you hear. To anyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.”

The Lord Jesus taught with such simplicity, employing ordinary, everyday observations, that we may easily miss the profundity of his point.  The seed as faith, for instance, in the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8, 4-15: the seed must undergo much in order to grow into a plant that is strong enough for the birds to come to swell in it.  It must endure cracking open in the soil, and then the rain and the sun.  It must derive nourishment from these and survive predators.  Likewise, to the one given faith, receiving it only marks the commencement of a life requiring good works, perseverance, and prayer, all the while avoiding the snares of a very active enemy.

In the figure the Lord Jesus uses in today’s Gospel Reading, Almighty God lights the lamp.  He chooses the lamp to be lit from those which have no oil in them and sets it on a lampstand to give light, in a dark room or house, so that those within may see.  Almighty God wants us to see, to understand so as to carry on our lives properly and without harming ourselves or others.  He wants us to see our tasks and to complete them and to lend aid to others as they strive to complete theirs.  The preeminent Lamp is his Son, Jesus Christ, “the true light, which enlightens every man who comes into this world” (John 1, 9).  But so powerful is the gift of faith that the Lord Jesus himself tells that we who possess it “are the light of the world” (Matthew 5, 14).

“There is nothing hidden that will not become visible.” Faith enlightens us to see the world and ourselves so that we may walk in the path through life God has created for us: “Direct my steps according to thy word: and let no iniquity have dominion over me” (Psalm 119, 133).The wicked fear the light that is faith and struggle against it: “The light shined in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it” (Jon 1, 5).

Nor is this light — faith — static, for it may grow or diminish in a person: “To anyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.”  That is, the one who has faith and exercises it through prayer and good works — the works of faith — will obtain more faith.  They will grow stronger in it, and one day, with St. Paul, the one with faith will say, “I shall know even as I am known”: I will know God even as he knows me, “face to face”.  But those who do not value their faith and do not exercise it and give themselves up to sin will lose what little faith they had, and instead of a place of light and peace, they will come “into the outer darkness, where men will weep and gnash their teeth” (Matthew 22, 13).