Basking in the Light of Jesus through Mary

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Also titled, "Prefer you the light of the moon, or the light of the sun?"



In third grade science recently, Faith learned that the moon itself has no light. An interesting concept when learning it for the first time (and, as always, it's interesting being the teacher and watching the learning happening for the first time). It's something most adults take for granted -- of course the moon has no light of its own, it reflects the light of the sun. But to a child who has always looked into the sky and seen the glow of the moon, albeit not as bright as the sun, still very bright as night objects go, it is quite a shock to learn that the moon, on its own, is really not what it appears to be. It's just a vehicle for the brighter light of the sun.

To help send home this concept of light, Faith and I did an experiment recently where we shined a flashlight into several household items, two of which were a mirror and a pane of glass. The mirror, like the moon, reflects the light "right back atcha" as the saying goes. As part of the experiment, Faith was directed to look behind the mirror to see if any of the light went through. Nope. None at all. It appeared to all be reflected back, except it wasn't quite as bright as the original light source. Just a bit of the light "was lost in translation."

The light that was shined on a pane of glass however, all came through the other side. At least it did if the glass was very clean. Dirty glass, of course, lost a lot of light. Where did the light go that was lost in the reflection from the mirror and the transmission through the dirty glass? Neither of us being physicists, we never figured that out. To us, it was just lost.

In my faith journey recently toward Total Consecration of Jesus through Mary, I saw how our heavenly mother Mary is like perfect, clean glass. The light of Our Lord Jesus shines through her perfectly, never losing any of its brightness. In fact, the light actually seems warmer and brighter as it shines through Mary -- it's so brilliant we can look right into the light and our eyes don't hurt at all. It's so beautiful we want to touch it, be inside the light, bask in its glory -- follow the bright beam of light through Mary to Jesus.

There are really two kinds of Christians, if you look at things from a simple perspective. There are those who are like mirrors, reflecting God's light, but not absorbing it. Though they are good at looking like the light, it actually never penetrates the surface. You can't get to the light through them.

And there are those who are like glass. Though none of us can transmit the light perfectly like Mary -- none of us are as clean as Mary and some of the light intensity will be lost when shining through -- still the transmission of light occurs. It shines through us -- into us and then back out.

It is to our benefit to keep the glass as clean as possible, so that the true intensity of the light will be transmitted. Sin clouds the glass making it sometimes almost impenetrable. The brighter the light that penetrates, the truer others see God in us. The brighter the light that penetrates, the easier it is for others to follow the beam to its source -- Our Savior.


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