Light, halos and auras

This is my homily for yesterday, the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A.  The readings for Sunday are here.

I know some of you know Sr. Ann Lindquist.  I had a conversation with her recently in which learned something I hadn’t previously figured out: the religious sisters at my high school, Boylan Catholic High School in Rockford, were from her religious order.  It turns out, she knows – or knew; some of them have gone to heaven – some of the teachers who taught me in high school.  Naturally, when I found out we had this connection, I was terrified that she’d go back to my high school teachers to get reports on what I was like as an awkward teen.

As it happens, those sisters were some of the very best teachers I had during my four years of high school.  Now, I haven’t been in high school for quite a while; my class had its 40th-year reunion last summer.  But this conversation with Sr. Ann got me recalling and reflecting on some of the teachers who had touched me, had helped me in some way in my journey to adulthood.  There was Sr. Ann Patrice, who taught me, when I was a sophomore in high school, the right way to read a novel – that there is more to it than skimming through the pages as fast as one can.  She taught me to be attuned to the images, the metaphors, the symbols, the word choices in great American novels like Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher In the Rye.  Then there was Sr. Estelle, who taught me American History and moderated the National Honor Society.  She helped me at a time when I was a troubled teen – she was an adult for me at a time when talking with my parents didn’t seem like an option.  Then there was Sr. Margaret Farrell, maybe the single best teacher I ever had.  She was the first person I ever met who was passionate about mathematics.  She made me believe that, if I applied myself, I could do advanced math.  She drew things out of me that I didn’t know I had.

A good teacher is a light in a student’s life.

These were women who approached teaching, not as a mere job, but as a vocation.  They poured themselves into the vocation of teaching.  We emerged from their classrooms, not only more knowledgeable, but somehow, in some way, better people than when we had entered.  A good teacher is like a lamp, lighting the way for students.  I really think that good teachers, living out their Christian faith like these three religious sisters, are what Jesus had in mind when he told us today, “You are the light of the world.”

I asked my wife Therese if she also had good teachers when she was in school.  She said she had; and she pointed out something else about good teachers: it wasn’t so much the knowledge they imparted to us, although that was important; it was that the really good teachers somehow called forth  gifts that we already have.  That is a gift in its own right: the gift of discerning gifts in others and bringing them to the surface.  It was as though someone had turned on a light inside of us, and we could see things within us that we hadn’t seen before.  Good teachers are a light, not only for the world around us, but for our inner world, as well.

I find myself offering thanks to God for the gift of good and great teachers in my life, both lay and religious.  A good teacher is salt: just as salt improves and elevates food, when a good teacher comes into our lives, we emerge from the encounter improved, elevated, made better in some way.

So, bearing in mind good teachers that we may have had in our lives, let’s consider Jesus’s words today: We are the salt of the earth … we are the light of the world.  It seems we’re being told that all of us have been given gifts that allow us to be salt and light for others.  Not all of us have the gift of being talented teachers, but the Holy Spirit has given all of us gifts that allow us to make a difference, not only in our lives, but in others’ lives as well. 

I’ve noticed that holy people tend to have this effect on others: they seem to improve and elevate everyone they meet.  Therese mentioned that Fr. Eugene Faucher, who lived a long retirement at the rectory here at St. Edna, was one of those holy people.  Fr. Faucher’s picture should be in the dictionary next to the entry for the term “salt of the earth”.   He lived a life of simple holiness.  There was something about him that just exuded light.

His partner in holy crime, Fr. Hurley, the long-time pastor of St. Edna, had the same effect on me.  Both men had a certain simple holiness about them.  My theory about them is that long lives of prayer and service had stripped away all the extraneous layers and left exposed to the world their inner light-filled essence which comes from God, so that they were as lamps that shone with holiness. 

For good people in our lives, the light of holiness that shines from them can seem so real that it is almost visible.  Patristic and Medieval artists understood this; that is why they depicted Jesus, the saints and angels with halos – visible, shining light that surrounded them.  As for me, I tend to lapse into New Age babble, and refer to people who have good auras.  To my way of thinking, a person with a good aura is a person who exudes this sense of light, this sense of holiness.  They have integrated their faith and their spirituality.  They also often are marked by great kindness and peace in their dealings with others.

Not all people, even Christians, have good auras.  Most of us are still working on integrating our faith into the rest of our existence.  And there are some people seem to suck the light away and leave darkness in their wakes.  Probably all of us have known people, even priests and teachers, who have what I would call a bad aura – who are deeply unhappy themselves and have the unfortunate gift of making everyone around them miserable as well.  We should pray for such people; they have been miscast.  They have found themselves in a place where they do not flourish, and actually prevent others from flourishing, too.

It is not our eyes that can see the light that holy people exude; it is our hearts.  As we continue to advance in living holy lives ourselves, listening and reflecting on God’s Word, and being strengthened in sacramental grace, our own hearts get wiser and shrewder, and we get better at comprehending the light, or the darkness, in others.  And, not incidentally, a sacramental and contemplative life strengthens the glow of our own lights, too.  These are the well-worn paths to holiness; all we need to do is walk those paths, and we may find that we’re becoming lights in the darkness of others’ lives.

Who are the people in your life who exude the light of holiness?  Who are the holy people that seem to make everyone and everything better simply by their presence?