Let Your Light Shine

“No one who lights a lamp conceals it...” 

Luke 8:16

I remember a very well known, very beautiful woman once commenting, “I don’t know why people would want to shake my hand. They don’t know what I was doing and where I came from.” I couldn’t forget her saying this when I was quite young because I remember wondering what could she have been doing to make her say that! All of us have secrets like the most embarrassing thing to have happened to us, or where we keep our passwords, but Jesus said in this same passage that there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nothing secret that will not come to light. 

Today it is not politically correct, especially in the West, to talk about religion and politics. There’s a lot of talk about relativism and about how we should respect others’ beliefs. We tiptoe around sharing the truth, the Word of God, because what is my truth may not be another’s. This is one way the world wants to stifle us from telling others the Good News. We are God’s light bearers and what God has revealed to us, we should not hide or be shy about proclaiming. The disciples and the saints were willing to die to proclaim the truth. 

Today is the feast day of Saint Januarius. He was the Bishop of Naples when the Emperor Diocletian waged the Roman Empire’s bloodiest persecution of Christians. When Januarius found out that his deacons and laymen were being put in prison, he went to visit them and he too was arrested when he refused to renounce his faith. There are many legends about how he and his companions were put in a furnace but did not burn, or dragged to an amphitheater and were not devoured by bears. The fact is Januarius was finally beheaded and his blood brought back to Naples. Three times a year thousands of people still visit the Naples Cathedral to see his congealed blood liquify in its double reliquary. 

“Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father.” (Matthew 5:16)