It was nearly 7:30 in the morning – the time I would normally be pulling into my parking space at work, the sun barely showing it’s bright face before the doors to my workplace shut behind me. Instead of anticipating a cup of coffee and a flood of emails in my inbox, this morning found me walking into my apartment, wide awake (without coffee!), holding fresh kolaches in my hands and complete stillness in my heart. It was a good morning.

The longest night of the year was over. The Radiant Dawn of yesterday’s O Antiphons had risen after the longest period of darkness in the entire year. The King of Nations was on his way.

I’m not sure why, but as the sun set yesterday, I felt closer to the manger than I had this entire Advent season. One more night separated my world from the arrival of longer, brighter days.

I was up before the sun this morning. And I was the only car on the road as I made my way to the Rorate Caeli mass at my parish. There was mystery in the air when I knelt in the church, lit only by candles, and watched the shadow of the priest on the altar begin the Holy Sacrifice.  The sun would rise this morning and find us ready – ready to greet the King.

As I held a candle in my own hands and watched the flame illuminate the world before me, I was immediately brought back to three specific places in my life where light penetrated darkness.

The first place my heart returned to was the Anza-Borrego desert of Southern California, one year ago this Advent. I was on an Advent Retreat, hiking and camping in the desert. My group arrived at the campsite after dusk. The chaplain greeted each of us with a 2-minute orientation. He pointed to my headlamp, “Glad to see you have a lamp – you’re going to need it! The ladies’ tents are located over there,” he said, waving to the black darkness beyond my view, “After you find one and settle in, come join us for adoration over there,” and he motioned to the darkness in another direction.

After securing my belongings in an empty tent, I found the field of adoration and knelt in wonder. There, in the middle of nothing – was Everything. The emptiness of the desert surroundings was filled by the light of one lamp and the Giant White Host above it, suspended in a monstrance. As I knelt with others around me, the moon above suddenly parted from the clouds. It was a full moon, and round rays of light began bouncing from the moon, creating rings of white throughout the sky. I couldn’t tell if the moon was reflecting the round white host, of if the host was reflecting the light of the moon. It was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen. And I marveled how even in the darkness, He gives us light. How there never really IS darkness because He IS the light.

The next place my heart returned to was the side of my bed, nearly a year before the desert trip. Instead of awe, in this memory, I found anguish. It was perhaps the darkest time in my life. I remember kneeling down at the side of my bed that night, crying out to God in the midst of a loss so great, it felt as though my heart was being ripped out from my body. Somehow as I beheld my bruised and wounded heart, I became aware of a “flicker” from within. A tiny, single flame of hope that was not just present – but alive. I wondered how it got there and how it could keep going when I could do nothing to tend to it. I didn’t know where it was, or how to get there, but I knew it was there.

And finally, my heart returned to a more recent memory –  the words of a new friend who looked outside of her own world one day to lift me up in my own. A stranger-yet-friend who held my shoulders in her hands in the middle of the lunchroom at work and looked directly into my eyes saying, “God is faithful. He promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. And Abraham believed, even without seeing.”

It may seem like a lot of places to go during one Mass, but it really only took a few minutes to go there in my heart. One experience built on another in perfect succession. The candle in my hand flickered it’s message of hope to me throughout each part of the Mass and I knew it was reflecting a message of hope for me that I would like to share with you: I saw in these memories how…

God comes to us in our nothingness – in our desert. And sometimes, we can see Him the clearest when there is nothing else around us. We have a chance to be that “thing” that reflects His light in the world around us, just as the moon reflects the light of the sun – even in darkness.

There is no such thing as absolute darkness where Christ is concerned. What seems to be a flicker of hope in our heart gives us constant life. That the flame, when recognized and tended to, can only become a bigger, brighter fire of light in our soul.

Sometimes we are called to simply believe that the stars are there, even in the middle of the day. With faith like Abraham, we can point to the promise with faith that moves even mountains.

By the time Mass finished, the light of the sun started to peek through the stained glass windows. And I saw the foreshadowing of another light in my memory of years gone by – the Star of Bethlehem. I firmly believe that the Star is always there with us. Like one of Abraham’s stars, it sustains us, even when we can’t see it.

Just as the Radiant Dawn comes again – and will keep coming, morning after morning.

God bless, Mary