Image: Olayola, Canva.
A true Christian is one whose path you can follow by the light he or she leaves burning through affirmation, love and encouragement. In all the darkness of our world, we need to remember that we are meant to be a light of hope in our world. Fr Chris Gleeson SJ says: “The way we care for other people, the way we affirm and encourage them, is our way of being a lamplighter.”
In the time before there were electric lights on our city streets, a person would have the responsibility of being the lamplighter, lighting the gas lamps at dusk and extinguishing them before dawn. As he went down one street and up another, people would watch him doing his work. They would watch him until the sun went down and they could not see him any more. But they could see new light come forth.
This is for me a wonderful image of what a Christian life is all about and what lies behind this challenge for all of us. Those who are Christians continue to light new lights and we can follow their path by the lights they have left behind. They become for us a light in the darkness. A true Christian, therefore, is one whose track you can follow by the light he or she leaves burning. In all the darkness of our world, we need to remember that we are meant to be a light of hope in our world. The way we care for other people, the way we affirm and encourage them, is our way of being a lamplighter.
Let me tell you a true story. About thirty years ago, a teenager came home from school very upset, ran upstairs and slammed his bedroom door. His mother followed him up there and, sitting down on the bed beside him, asked him what the matter was. He was really upset by now and said that he didn’t make the school basketball squad because he was too small.
His mother was acutely aware that, whatever she said to the boy then could mean the difference between success and failure for him. After pausing and thinking briefly, she said: “Son, you can never be too small. It’s not the size of the person in the game that matters, but the size of the game in the person.”
The next morning his mother heard the alarm clock go off at 4.30 am and the sound of her son going downstairs and out into the yard to start practising. From that time on he practised every morning and evening, no matter what the weather was. And as he practised, he kept repeating to himself: “It is not the size of the player in the game that counts, but the size of the game in the player.”
Of course, when the basketball trials came round again he played with such focus and skill that he made the team that year and for every year after that. He went on to become one of the great athletes in the 1980s and 1990s, and I am referring, of course, to the champion NBA basketballer, Michael Jordan.
In other words, it is not the size of our body that counts, but the size of our heart.
Read the whole story here: Let your light shine. It is the homily that Fr Chris Gleeson gave at the Veneration of Relics Mass at St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College in Auckland, New Zealand on 16 May.
Banner image by Pixelshot, Canva.