A Light of Life

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. And I'm one of those who see that light w/c leads me to appreciate life.

In the Philippine Culture, many of us have already entered into the system the habit of going to the church every Sunday but only few could appreciate the goodness of life because we falsely believe that going to church is all about security & comfort. I could still recall an instance in the church when one of the parishioners went to the image of the crucifix & got money from his pocket & wiped it several times in the image.

We can notice that some business establishments display the image of the Child Jesus in green robe & out of discontentment even place it side by side w/ the image of a frog w/ coins on it & an image of a waving cat. what's the purpose? To attract good luck! You know what my mother & sister-in-law say about it, "Nothing is bad anyway if we believe", they would defend. There's nothing wrong w/ the image of the Child Jesus but to pattern it w/ the other images makes it wrong.

Deuteronomy 18:10-12 Let there not be found among you anyone who immolates his son or daughter in the fire, nor a fortune-teller, soothsayer, charmer, diviner, or caster of spells, nor one who consults ghosts & spirits or seeks oracles from the dead. Anyone who does such things is an abomination to the Lord, &; because of such abominations, the Lord, your God is driving these nations out of your way.

As we continue to progress, we set aside who gives us the light of life that leads us to appreciate the goodness of productivity. But that appreciation have blinded us w/c brings us to forget God.There may be some wealthy or poor who's in spite of what they are still acknowledge & submit to the sublime power of God but most of us return to Him only after the crisis on humiliation, pain, sufferings that weaken us badly.

While we recognize how weak we are in times of disaster, we see the light of God in our lives accepting that life in the middle of bad times will just be alright if we continue to hold on to the light of life who is Jesus Himself who gives us strength through the people around us whom we disregarded, the church who feeds us the wisdom during the Liturgy w/c we ignored, the poor people whose scarcity reminds us to be appreciative of what we have but we pay no attention because of our selfishness.

A light of life comes within our communion with all the people around us whom we're suppose to share w/ our victories & failures, tears & joy because no one is an island as we commonly quote.

Appreciation Of Jesus' light as a light of life is appreciation of communal life both w/ the poor & the rich, the spiritually blind & spiritually mature who are His ministry w/c are also ours because these are our mission all throughout our lives. The more we talk about light of life in the community where we are gathered together, the more we become stronger in battling w/ the distractions of life.

John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the WORD, & the WORD was w/ God, & the Word was God. He was in the beginning w/ God. All things come to be through Him, & w/o Him nothing came to be. What came to be through Him was life, & the life was the light of the human race, the light that shines in the darkness, & the darkness has not overcome it.

John 3:19-21 And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does the wicked things hates the light & does not come toward the light, so that his works might not exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.