This post-Christmas-blues story began one morning at about 3:30 a. m. in that part of January liturgically known as Ordinary Time.

It’s that period of time that comes right after the intense liturgical experience of the Incarnation, an experience which is spread throughout Advent, reaches its high at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and peaks again on the feast of Epiphany.

And, as you know full-well, all along the way, everything had been enhanced with multi-colored lights, luscious foods, peaceful carols, and delightful cards, which all put together, make Christmastime one of the most glorious seasons of the year.

Then suddenly—clunk—it’s over. After all the celebrating, suddenly we find ourselves in a mode that is so routine we don’t know what to do with it.

It isn’t long before we’ve forgotten both the lights of Christmas and the Light of the World to which they were meant to point.

Unfortunately, it’s usually also the time when our love of winter is beginning to wane. So we usually end up just grinning and bearing it until the spring arrives—or whatever the next season happens to be where we live.

I was in a bit of that mood that morning as I stood there at 3:30 a.m. looking up into the night sky—something I often do since I live where there is no artificial light to obstruct the visibility. There were enough stars overhead to give a vague light even in the pitch darkness of that early morning hour.

By then the Big Dipper with its lip still pointing to the North Star was almost upside down. The famous giant, Betelgeuse, was visible in Orion.

Betelgeuse! Imagine a star in the sky overhead whose diameter is larger than the earth’s orbit around the sun! (We’re talkin’ about a really big star and, all we see from planet earth is a pinhead of light.)

Low on the horizon, I could see the light from Andromeda 2.2 million light years away. It’s the only other galaxy visible to us with the naked eye from our Milky Way. 2.2 million light years away! That means the light I saw had been travelling at 186,000 miles per second for over two million years before it could reach my little ole eyeball!

Then I waited until I had seen a couple of meteorites shooting across the sky before I finally entered the total darkness of the outhouse, struck a match with my thumbnail, and lit the candle.

But this time when the match exploded into light in that darkness, something was different. I blew out the candle, went back outside, and looked up at the stars again.

Then I lit another match. Poof! Light! I blew the match out and looked up at the stars again. Then I lit another one and another and another until all the matches were gone and there was nothing left but the stars.

And then came the sacramental connection: inviting Christ, the Light of the World, into my darkness is as simple and as real as igniting a match in the dark. Suddenly, like the burning match, he is there.

Then I realized even more fully that all light, in whatever form, is meant to remind us over and over, in every which way, throughout the whole year, of Christmas, the Feast of Lights, the Feast of Christ, the Light of the World.

Throughout the year, no matter how dark the night in our minds or souls, we can simply strike a match in the dark, and the light will hearken us safely back to Christ, the Light of the world. Poof! Just like that! And all because we are a sacramental people.

This is not as exciting to us as some of the stuff we know about Betelgeuse or Andromeda, but perhaps that’s because many of us have lost the sense of sacramental adventure.

In the sacramental world where we should be living, all of creation is meant to reveal something to us about Christ.

We already know about this when we use the more obvious sacramentals—water, oil, candles, statues, icons, music, and bread.

So the adventure for us is to find the sacramental connections in creation, sing about them, write about them, talk about them, dream about them, pray about them.

For in every created thing there is a hidden spark of God, and discovering that spark is every bit as exciting as discovering the speed of light or any of the stars in the sky.

It’s up to us to discover the connections, to always be on the look-out for the Light.

Do we risk being too far out of reality if we imagine that striking a match in the dark has anything to do with Christ coming to that place of darkness as the Light?

No. Striking that light really can be a powerful sacramental proclamation that I believe Christ is the light of the world, and that right now, like a lit match, he is shining in my little world of darkness.

Living that way is a lot better than sitting around in the post-Christmas blues bemoaning winter until spring when we’ll probably find something else to bemoan.

If we are on the look-out for them, there can be many sacramental moments when simple things point to the power and wonders of Christ.

We can even just flip on the light switch when we are down and tempted to doubt that Christ, the Light of our lives, fills the darkness in every room, and he is with us.

And we can look up into the night sky, even if we are somewhere where all we can see is one or two stars, and remember that no matter what is happening anywhere on earth, Christ, who is bigger than the whole universe, faster than light, and more powerful than a billion suns, is right there lighting everything up with himself, who is Light.

What a wonderful gift the Spirit has given us by inviting us into this world of sacramentals, by teaching us how to discover in creation itself the marvels and wonders of Christ which are more exciting and unimaginable than all of the night stars put together!

What a shame if we moan it all away in the post-Christmas blues with our eyes set on the spring that is to come and miss the beauty of the winter of Incarnation that is here right now.

So my dear friends, let us humbly push the edges of these sacramental mysteries and find ever new connections, sing about them, write about them, talk about them, dream about them, pray about them.

Then it won’t be long before we discover that sacramental people don’t have time for the blues. They’re too busy being on the look-out for the Light.