Embracing the night, awaken the light

“The Winter Solstice is the time of
ending and beginning … 
A time to forgive, to be forgiven,
and to make a fresh start.” 

Frederick Lenz

“We are only the light bulbs,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu said to capture the life of a disciple, “and our job is just to remain screwed in!”  

Though at times we screw up or burn out, Bishop Tutu reminds us that “God has created us” and “despite everything that conspires to deny this truth, each one of us is of immense worth, of infinite value because God loved us. That is why God created us.” 

Jesus confirms this truth by using the image of light. “You are the light of the world. Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:14-16). We want our light to shine so that others may see how God is at work in us and in our world.  

The winter solstice offers us an opportunity to check how the light of God’s grace is illuminating the divine presence and how it shines through the windows of our souls. Every year, a few days before Christmas, Precious Blood Renewal Center in Liberty, Missouri, celebrates the winter solstice with an evening of reflection, a meditative walk to the labyrinth, and a community meal.   

We are reminded during the winter solstice that even though the darkness of the world seeps in around us, the inner light of hope, of peace, of faith, of love, is never extinguished. It may grow dim, flicker, and fade as the winds of war and violence blow against it, but it will not go out. The winter solstice invites us to guard that flame as it grows within us. 

On the longest night of the year, we pause to embrace the night by tapping the energy of light that dwells within, to allow that light to help us shift direction into a new season of our lives. It is a night for intention, to rest in the darkness that now begins to shift as the nights will be shorter and the days longer. 

Honoring the memory 

Lighting candles as an intention for prayer has a long history in the church. The great mystic, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, said, “A candle of the Lord is the soul of a person.” The first thing I do in the morning is light several candles as a call to prayer and mindfulness. With so much darkness in the world, I have a candle hanging from the ceiling that serves as a kind of sanctuary lamp. People passing by our house can see the candle in the window and perhaps be mindful for a moment of how the light overcomes the darkness. I also have several candles on my prayer table honoring the memory of loved ones who have died.  

In his memoir about his mother, “Unforgettable,” Scott Simon of National Public Radio recalls being in Paris with his wife and two daughters a few months after his mother died. It was raining, and they slipped inside a church. “Candles gleamed and quivered in the gray light that flickered through the stained-glass windows,” he writes. “I remembered the times my mother and I had just walked and wandered into churches in neighborhoods we didn’t know well in cities we loved, and lit candles for people we cherished.” 

As he sat in that church in Paris and “watched my wife and daughters walk from statue to statue, saint to saint,” he felt his grief over his mother’s death begin to lift. He “realized that all the reminders of my mother didn’t make me sad. They gave me pleasure; they made me smile. She made me laugh a lot. She held me close and let me go. She taught me kindness, jokes, and grace. I’d had the chance, in our last days together, to tell her that I loved her. My religious convictions are chaotic and irreconcilable. But I hope I can recognize a blessing.” 

He got up from the pew and began searching for a saint he recognized. He found the statue of St. Joseph in the back of church and recalled that his mother suggested Scott take Joseph as his patron saint. “Because he was a Jewish father who thought his kid walked on water?” Scott asked his mom. 

His mother replied, “A father who adopted and loved his child. And believed whatever his wife said.” He knelt in front of the St. Joseph statue and “smiled to remember and said thank you, thank you — I suppose it was a prayer — and my daughters saw me and walked over, grinning with a surprise.” And they lit a candle for their grandmother.  

The winter solstice is for honoring endings and embracing new beginnings. We honor the past, but we also make room for what God has in mind for us in the year ahead. We create space within us for the birth of hope. It is the same message of Advent leading to Christmas, making room, preparing the way, for the birth of the light of the world. 

Walking the labyrinth 

A spiritual exercise that helps me get in touch with this inner light is walking the labyrinth. “Labyrinths are not some New Age invention,” Gillian Corcoran writes, “they are ancient, sacred patterns that combine the image of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. They represent a journey to our own center and back again, out into the world.” 

Walking the labyrinth is an invitation to go deeper into one’s being, to rest for a while in the center, to rediscover one’s authentic call, identity, and truth. It is an invitation to breathe in deeply the air of the spirit and to release whatever keeps me from being my authentic self. As Helen Curry writes, “The labyrinth is a path to connect you to the still small voice, the sacred within yourself.” 

Walking the circular pattern of the labyrinth is not a stroll down memory lane but a pilgrimage of peace to the center of one’s soul. It is a solemn, mindful journey on an avenue of hope, reconciliation, and renewal. Mindfulness and intention are keys to unlock the deeper meaning God desires to awaken. 

As an individual exercise, the labyrinth invites a rich and deeper experience of God’s grace and mercy. Since the winter solstice is a time for endings and beginnings, one’s intention could be to heal a memory or a relationship, to reduce stress, to grieve, to solve a problem, or to discern a change in one’s life.  

As a spiritual exercise, the labyrinth helps the person get in touch with one’s best self, one’s true self, the light of Christ within. As Thomas Moore writes, “Christmas only makes sense if you know the experience of darkness — the experience of not knowing what is going on, not knowing your way, not seeing life for what it is, failing, losing, and suffering. Then the turn toward light has real impact. The more you know the dark, the more you appreciate the light.”  

Precious Blood Father Joe Nassal is involved in retreat and renewal ministry and lives at Sonnino Mission House in Berkeley, California. He is the author of eight books, including “The Conspiracy of Compassion.” He is presently vice provincial of the United States Province of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood.