Light and Darkness

Dear faithful,

In Western painting, there is a technique called clair obscur or chiaroscuro, which involves playing on the contrast between light and darkness within a single painting.

 

If we were to paint a picture of the Last Supper, we would have to use this technique, for today’s Mass is truly a Mass of chiaroscuro, a contrast between light and darkness. The Mass is beautiful and luminous; the vestments are white or gold; the altar is adorned with white and flowers; the bells ring… and at the same time, all around, it is night. Not just any night, but the night of the Passion, the night of betrayal. It is the most beautiful of meals, the one in which Our Lord gives us the most precious, the most sacred—that which gives meaning to the entire life of the Church: the Holy Mass and the priesthood—and at the same time, this meal is one of betrayal and the foreshadowing of the Passion.

 

There is, therefore, a struggle between light and darkness. In this sermon, I would like to answer the question: how does Our Lord overcome evil?

 

I / Darkness: Evil is a transitory state

  What is evil? We often experience it and therefore believe we know well the evil from which humanity suffers.

 

  But is that really so certain? We are often victims of an illusion: we think that evil, and Satan who is its source, is a being independent of God, an adversary of God, and that the two are in conflict. In reality, God has no adversary; God exists and is the sole source of all existence, including that of the one who will become the devil. The devil does indeed exist, but he is nothing more than a refusal—the refusal of God, the refusal of good. Good and evil are not two opposing principles; evil is subject to God, and if God allows it to persist in our world, it is solely for two reasons:

 

The first is our freedom; since God created us and the angels free, He leaves us the choice, including the choice to reject Him. And secondly, He gives sinners time for conversion and does not necessarily punish them during this life.

 

  We are living in a time when people choose or reject God, and when God shows patience toward them. But this era in human history will one day come to an end; it will be the end of time and the Last Judgment. Then all who have chosen God will live eternally with Him, and the wicked will go to eternal hell with Satan and the evil angels; there will be no more evil on the new earth of mankind.

 

  Evil is therefore a lack and a refusal. But a lack of what? Of love. Man has refused to love God; this is the origin of original sin. We are trapped in our selfishness and refuse to trust God our Father.

  How can this evil be overcome?

 

II/ Love as the response to evil

  This Mass shows us how evil is conquered by Our Lord: through love. And this victory will not come only at the end of time; it has already begun. This is the meaning of the light and beauty present in this Mass. During this Triduum, we commemorate, as we do every year, the historic moment when Our Lord definitively conquered evil through His love. This victory has already taken place. How did it take place? St. John expresses it at the very beginning of the Gospel for this Mass: “Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end” (13:1).  The term used by St. John is generally translated as “until the end,” but this is not merely a temporal reference meaning “to the very end.” The term used by St. John is “télos,” which means the end but even more so perfection. What Our Lord gives is infinite, boundless, perfect love, and it is through this love that he destroys evil. This love of Our Lord is very different from our human loves, which always have their limits. There is always an element of selfishness in all our loves; we always disappoint others just as we are disappointed by them.

 

When Our Lord offers himself to his disciples or offers himself as a sacrifice on the Cross, he gives himself totally, without the slightest selfishness, without the slightest trace of disappointment. It is this love that makes the Cross of Our Lord salvific. Without this love, Good Friday would be nothing more than the killing of an innocent man, a sad spectacle like so many others that have occurred throughout human history. But thanks to this love, the Cross becomes a victory. On the Cross, in the depths of suffering, Our Lord always remained in this act of love: love for His Father and for His disciples: for the multitude.

 

Since the Fall, humanity has refused to love, and this has led to all the evils we know so well; but through the act of love of Our Lord, the bond with God is restored, through the infinite charity of Our Lord Jesus Christ who offers Himself as a sacrifice on the Cross. The Cross of Our Lord is not an act of murder but a victory. It restores the bond of love between God and humanity.

 

III/ Placing Charity at the center of our lives

  This act of love by Jesus is demonstrated in a teaching manner through the example of the washing of the feet, which we will reenact during this Mass, but even more so through the Sacrament of the Eucharist, instituted today. The Eucharist is the sacrament of charity. A charity that Our Lord entrusts to his apostles. Indeed, Our Lord does not merely manifest the infinite love for his Father that was lacking in humanity, but he concretely places this love in the hands of his apostles, the first priests of his holy and Catholic Church.

 

  When we receive Communion at Mass, we receive this love; therefore, we must live in accordance with this love and fight against our selfishness. St. Paul reminds us of this in his epistle: “Let each one examine himself.” (1 Co 11, 28). This love must become the reference point and standard for our lives.

 

  As a way to put into practice these beautiful truths expressed in today’s Mass, I’d like to suggest a point to reflect on. Sometimes, in fact, some of the faithful lose sight of Jesus’ love. Sometimes we become overly scrupulous—that is, we focus on ourselves, on what we do, or on what we fail to do. For example, we sometimes go to confession with ourselves in mind: I look at myself and discover that I am not as I should be, as I think I should be, or as others think I should be. My sins are simply a list that I present to the priest. But where is the charity in that? According to the Catechism, confession must stem from contrition, which is always founded on the love of God: I go to confession because I realize that I do not live up to the charity shown by Our Lord Jesus Christ, who loved his disciples “to the end.” Frequent confession is a very good thing, but it must not become a form of self-enclosure; on the contrary, it must always lead us back to the charity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to which we always seek to correspond more fully.

 

Dear faithful, evil comes from the refusal to love God. Our Lord compensates for humanity’s refusals through the love He shows His disciples this evening—a love that will lead Him to death on the Cross tomorrow. Let us take the time this evening to contemplate deeply this charity of Jesus.