Lighted Candles in the Darkness
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1 January 1989
Paris, France

Mother Duzan, Father Lloret and my dear Sisters,

When darkness falls on Christmas Eve in the country from which I come, there is an old custom of placing a single lighted candle in one of the windows of the house. The custom of doing so originated among the simple peasants of the countryside, long before electricity was invented. Leaving the lighted candle in the window on Christmas Eve was a gesture of faith. In doing so the simple people wished to let Mary and Joseph know that, wherever they saw a candle in the window, there was to be found a room and a welcome. When the custom started I do not know, but it is certain that the people who first did so had much faith, but very little of the goods of this world. As so many of our Sisters have discovered, the poor often have a highly developed sense of generosity and are ready to share the little they have with those who have even less.

The custom of placing a lighted candle in the window on Christmas Eve spread in time to towns and cities. A lighted candle, even in an age with electricity, has a certain magic. Perhaps for that reason well-to-do families in towns and cities began to place a candle in one of the windows of their house, simply because they considered it an appropriate Christmas decoration. It was artistic. On occasion, passing through the wealthy residential parts of cities and seeing some decorative candles in windows, I have often asked myself the question: What would be the reaction if Mary and Joseph called at that particular house and asked for a room for the night so that Mary could give birth to her child? What would be the reaction if anyone, apart from a very close friend of the family, called and asked for lodgings there on Christmas night? I do not think it is presuming too much to say that the reply at the door would be the same as that of the inn keepers of Bethlehem: "I'm awfully sorry, but try somewhere else." For the dwellers in those wealthy houses, the lighted candle in the window on Christmas Eve has lost its original significance.

For our Founders, our Community is seen as one great house that has a lighted candle in its window, not just on Christmas night but at all times. With their vision of faith St. Vincent and St. Louise saw each local community and each individual Daughter of Charity as so many lighted candles, assuring the poor that if they approached, they would find light and warmth and shelter amid the darkness, the coldness and the inhospitality of this world. Thank God, the Community continues to shine on all continents of the world, giving assurance to the poor that, where Daughters of Charity are to be found, there the poor will find friends who are true reflections of Christ, the Light of the world.

Each individual local community faces the challenge every day of not only keeping the flickering flame of charity alight, but also of making sure that it is not an empty sign. A family can become closed in on itself; so too can a local community. Almost without knowing, a community can be saying what the inn keeper in Bethlehem said to Mary and Joseph: "Sorry, there is no room here." The periodic but regular revision of a Province's works is undertaken for the purpose of making sure that the Company does not drift into suburbia, where the candle in the window is a pleasant, seasonal decoration and no more. "Fraternal charity," your Constitutions remind us, "extends beyond the local community. The Sisters are hospitable and gracious, they are aware that priority must be given to the needs of the mission and to those periods of time necessary for community living." (C. 2.22).

Not only must our communities be lighted candles in the darkness of this world, but each of us individually must be a sign of welcome to all who knock at the door of our hearts. We can only do this if we are convinced that, at every moment of our day, Christ Himself stands at our door and knocks.

Yes, my dear Sisters, that is one of the great truths of our faith, that Christ is seeking the hospitality of our hearts, not just on Christmas Eve but on every day of the year. Perhaps you will recall that beautiful reading of the Song of Songs, which the Church proposes for our meditation a few days before the feast of Christmas. The passage is part of a love story, and the lover is presented as standing outside the house of the girl he loves. "There he stands, gazing in at the windows....My beloved speaks and says to me: `Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away'...." (Sg 2:9-10).

That is an image of the relationship between God and His Church, between God and the individual soul. Often Our Lord is addressing us in the words of the Song of Songs: "You are like a dove that hides in the crevice of a rock. Let me see your face, let me hear your voice." (Ibid, v. 14). Yes, too often we are curled up in ourselves, in the crevices of our own selfish preoccupations, avoiding the gaze of the lovely face of Christ and failing to hear his enchanting voice.

In the heart of Him who is our tremendous lover, there is the hope that we will open the door of our hearts so that we can meet more fully His loving gaze. The enchanting voice of Christ is heard through the accents of the poor, through our Superiors, through those whose lives we touch in Community. His voice is to be heard even in the most insignificant events of our daily lives. As day succeeds day in this new year of grace, we can make only one of two responses to the voice of Christ. Either we can respond by opening the door of our hearts fully or we can close or only leave half open that door at which He stands and knocks at each moment. If He can share our lives with us, it means that He has been invited into the intimacy of our hearts. The lighted candle in the window has meaning. When Christ cannot share our thoughts, our words, our actions, then He is turned away from our door. The lighted candle is an empty sign. It is but a decoration.

At the beginning of this new year, Our Lord invites us in the words of the Song of Songs "to arise, my fair one, and come away." (Ibid., v. 14). It is an invitation to close loving union with Him without whom we can do nothing. "Arise, my fair one, and come away." It will be the invitation that we will receive when all our years will have run their course. Then, at the moment of our deaths, what will dismay and pain us most will not be our sinfulness, but the feeble response we made to the persistent intensity of His love. "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me." (Rv 3:20).

At the beginning of this new year, I pray through the intercession of the Mother of God that each of us will be to each other and to the poor "a burning and a shining lamp" (Jn 5:35) of love. From his place in heaven I am sure St. Vincent's wish is no different from that which he expressed to St. Louise in January 1638: "I wish you a young heart and a love in its first bloom for Him who loves us unceasingly and as tenderly as if He were just beginning to love us." (Coste I, Eng. ed., ltr. 288, p. 408).

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