A Light Year
Fun fact: light travels nearly 6 trillion miles in one year - the definition of a "light year"
Ever consider the impact of light? How much light there is in this world? How far-reaching light can be? In a society that focuses so much on negativity...do we stop and ask, well what am I going to do about it? It may seem like a drop in the ocean, but "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." ~ Jn. 1:5.
Some people choose "words" for the year, to focus on a particular virtue or grace. I hope 2022 for me, and for all of you, will be a year of light. This has so many possibilities . . . trying to seek more lights in prayer, focusing on the positive moments that are lights in life, being a light ourselves to those around us who may be dwelling in darkness.
Don't look too far this year, spreading yourself into all kinds of impossible resolutions. Focus on what is right in front of you . . . today . . . and capturing those lights as if they were little lightning bugs, dotting your backyard. There is a restlessness in this world, an endless search, trying to fill a jar with happiness in finite things. Where are we looking for fulfillment in 2022? Are we searching for what is eternal and lasting? And if not, that might be the first question of the new year, why not?
Happy New Year 2022!!
"Radiating Christ" by Cardinal Newman
Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance wherever I go. Flood my soul with Your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly, that my life may only be a radiance of Yours. Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus! Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be mine. It will be You, shining on others through me. Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me. Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. Amen.