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Him or Her—Not Me

by Catherine Doherty

By September 30, 2019November 23rd, 2023No Comments

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Christ is the Light of the Nations, but God says to each one of us: You are my servant in whom I shall be glorified. …It is not enough for you to be my servant. …I will make you the light of the nations (Is 49:3, 6).

That is addressed to you and me. Do we believe this? Or do we dismiss it and feel and think, “Me? I am a sinner. God isn’t speaking to me; he is speaking to her or to him, but not to me.”

Do we remember that we are saved sinners? Do we trust God? We forget that God loves us, not because we are good, but because he is good. Maybe we don’t trust him to love us because we have decided we are unlovable.

Also, we don’t want to get involved. To be the light of the nations—that means carrying some kind of lamp. Or to be a light, which is even harder, for that means preparing ourselves to be a light.

That means praying to be a light. That means surrendering totally to God, because only he can make us a light.

That means to understand that when I surrender to God, I also surrender to others—I become their servant. This is a lot to take upon myself.

The first thing we have to do to be the light of nations is to do the will of the Father as Christ did.

I just got a letter from a young woman who on her own went to work with a bishop in the North as a lay apostle. But that involved some kind of discipline, and she says, “Well, I am going to quit here pretty soon, because I don’t want to do what they want me to do. I want to do what I want to do.” Always “I want to do what I want to do.”

That is the death-knell of being a light to the nations. If I am not obedient to who I should be obedient to, I am not moving according to the will of God.

The other thing is that we don’t need to belong to a community in order to perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Every Christian belongs to the Most Holy Trinity and therefore is a member of a tremendous and eternal community.

A little flashlight illuminates little paths. I may be that kind of light, or I might be one of those huge lights that light up the whole countryside.

Any contact with another person that brings me out of myself illuminates a little path. Even the smallest act of love helps disperse the darkness.

Excerpted and adapted from Mystical Body of Christ (2013), pp. 57-59, available from MH Publications

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