The Light That Beautifies the World

Dear Friends,

On the cover of the bulletin this coming Sunday there is a beautiful story — a true story — that Mother Paulette wrote. I won’t spoil the story here. I’m glad for you to get to read it on Sunday. I’ll just say here that it’s made me think about fall and the falling leaves.

I had a friend in seminary who loved fall so much that every October 1 she’d send out a flyer of fifty great things about October. Football, pumpkins, falling leaves, all that stuff. And, yes, of course: pumpkin spice lattes. Lots of great things.

But my personal favorite part of the season is the sunlight. We’re still a ways away from brisk days with sweaters, but already the days have grown noticeably shorter and so the light has changed.

There is a warmth and a softness to it — the autumn sun is neither the cool, bright lamp struggling against the winter chill nor the blazing inferno of summer. Somehow the light being a little less intense, the darkness being a little quicker to come on, somehow this change brings out and enhances the beauty of the summer growth that still clings to the natural world in early fall.

And it strikes me that the light of Christ has to be this kind of light. Jesus’ light must be less oppressive than the sun at midday in July, more forgiving than the bright lights of an operating theatre, less blinding than a pair of high-beams on a jacked-up truck driving towards you. The color of Christ’s light brings out the beauty of the human lives he so loves; washes away the scars and imperfections that mar our appearance. The light of Christ doesn’t just banish the darkness; it beautifies the world.

As gatherers around Christ’s light, we should see the world with the same appreciation we have on that perfect late autumn afternoon — everything just covered in beauty, saturated in God’s love. Thanks be to God for days that remind us, just a little, of the beauty God sees in the world he made and then lit up with his love.

In Christ,
Fr. Andrew