The Empty Light
I want to talk about my experience this past Good Friday.
I am sensitive to the quality of spiritual light in worship, and this past Easter Week the energy in the Easter Triduum (Good Friday, Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday) was particularly vivid and intense - at Holy Saturday, which is the peak of the entire Church year, the spiritual light was so intense the air was practically shimmering, and I got giddy and started laughing. This is not an "occult" thing - I mentioned it to one of the other choir members and he agreed; he knew what I was talking about. I think a lot of people sense and react to this, whether or not they think about it the same way I do.
Each of the days in the Easter week celebration has its own particular quality of light, and this week the Good Friday light was quite intense in a particular sort of way. The phrase that came to mind during the service was, the Empty Light.
Good Friday commemorates the day of the suffering and death of Christ on the cross, and his being placed in a tomb of rock. This is the one day of the year that it is forbidden to celebrate the Mass, so in a sense it is the day of the absence of Christ. Why, then, is this light special?
The phrase Empty Light caught something for me. It felt like this is a special light that will suck up anything - any hurt, any pain, any emotional or spiritual wound, maybe physical wounds also.
Behold, the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sins of the world.
That is what this Empty Light does - take away the sins of the world - absorbs them, sucks them up, heals them by dissolving into the Empty Light. This is not a figure of speech, nor is it a conceptual abstraction about something that happens to us after death. This is a spiritual and energetic reality available here and now.
We need to think about sin here in a broader sense of the term to understand this experience, since the sins that this light takes away are not always or even primarily moral issues. This means sin in the sense of any wound, any brokenness, any pain, any place of lack of wholeness. Jesus came to heal ALL of our sins and diseases, unconditionally.
There is not a single incident of Jesus healing in the entire New Testament where He demanded a confession first.
Even in the parable of the Prodigal Son, as soon as the father saw his son coming he ran out to greet him and ordered the fatted calf to be slaughtered for the feast - he didn't wait for an apology or an explanation or a promise of penance. The only demand was for his returning to the Father - he could not be welcomed home until he returned home.
That is what the word Repent means - turn back, turn around, return home.
There is a price for the sort of healing that the Empty Light of Good Friday offers - we need to be willing to let go of our hurts and wounds. That seems like a no-brainer, but it is not always easy to let go of old resentments, old bitterness - places where we've been badly hurt and are not ready to let go of the bitter pleasure of blaming, complaining and hating the person who hurt us. We also need to let go of indulging in the bittersweet wine of self-pity.
This is where forgiveness comes in - we can only be forgiven and healed where we in turn are ready to forgive. For-give - we give our wound to the Empty Light, and for that wound the Light returns to us a wholeness and peace. No healing without forgiveness - That is the price we have to pay.
That's the Empty Light, and I understand that in a new way thanks to this gift on Good Friday. That light is always there, always available, whenever I turn my heart to Him in prayer, for myself or for others. We celebrate Good Friday, and that Light, whenever the priest offers up the host in the sacrifice of the Mass.
Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof; Only say the word and my soul shall be healed.
I leave you with a recording of the Good Friday music from act 3 of Wagner's Parsifal, conducted by Rudolf Kempe.
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