In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Our Lord is in the temple speaking before the Jews and the Pharisees,
and he says that he is the light of the world.
I am the light of the world.
He that followeth me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
This was true in his day and how there was so much darkness in the world
and in the church at that time, in the Jerusalem.
Darkness that led to the crucifixion and death of God himself in the flesh.
And, of course, we see a lot of darkness.
In the world today, there's darkness when there is sin.
There's darkness when there is God cast out of society.
There's darkness when there's no hope, when there's no one turning to God.
There's darkness also when there's Jesus is not present.
People believe in God and speak about him, but Jesus is the prophet of God.
Jesus is the son of God.
Come into the world.
Come into the world to speak to us directly, and we don't listen.
We did not accept him, and we don't accept him even today in so many places,
in so many countries.
The world is really in darkness because the light that God the Father sent into the world,
his son, is not accepted even today.
And so without the light, we have sin.
We have lack of hope and despair and sadness everywhere.
We have strife, lack of charity.
People are in darkness.
People are being abused and mistreated and treated in so many horrible ways.
And it just leads to lack of happiness, and then there's no hope.
There's just despair.
And we Christians, we Catholics, hold out that torch to the light of Jesus Christ,
not only his teaching and his ways and the teachings of the church,
but Jesus Christ himself, who is present in the world, in the Eucharist,
and in our hearts and in our souls.
And in our world, he is present.
If we just turn to him, we have recourse to him, and we follow his teachings.
We follow him himself, who is here in the Eucharist.
We need to shed that light.
We need to live that life.
We need to bring that light back into the world to the poor souls
who are floundering in sin and misery and don't have any hope.
We need to bring the light of Jesus Christ,
not just God.
Not just the word God that people do accept in many ways,
but Jesus Christ, who is really the manifestation of who God really is,
not just our imagination, but what God really wants of us,
how he wants us to live, following the example of Jesus Christ.
Let us live that light in ourselves and have hope and joy and peace in ourselves
and bring that light to the world.
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Thank you.