I recently read a beautiful description of the Church: “The Church is like the moon. She does not shine with her own light but reflects the light of Christ. Indeed, just as the moon without the sun is dark, opaque, and invisible, so too is the Church if she separates herself from Christ, true God and true man.”
This comparison is familiar to me, for many writers applied it to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is a beautiful comparison, and it accurately describes how the moon shines so brightly.
The moon in its fullness is a beautiful sight as it shines with a gentleness that is very reassuring.
To compare Mary and the Church to the moon shows the resplendent glory of each while teaching us that their beauty comes from a far greater Glory, a Glory that is infinite and infinitely beyond our gaze.
We can look at the moon, but we cannot safely look at the sun, for we would be blinded. In the same way, we can contemplate Mary and the Church, but when we try to look directly at God, the source of their beauty, we are totally dazzled, and our minds are reduced to numbness.
Also, at this time of the Church’s liturgical year, the moon has a special meaning for us. The moon establishes the date of Easter, for Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.
That is why the date of Easter varies so much from year to year. As we draw closer to Easter, we see the moon waxing towards its fullest beauty.
The moon that we watch so closely is the Paschal Moon, the moon that announces the Passover from Holy Thursday to Good Friday to Easter Sunday.
The full moon lights up Holy Thursday. It signals the Passover meal that Jesus longed to eat with his disciples. It lights the path to Gethsemane. Its light falls on the crowd of soldiers who came to arrest Jesus, and though its light was bright, it was not bright enough for those who sought him to identify Jesus.
For this reason, Judas needed to identify Jesus, to single him out from his disciples and mark him with a kiss The full moon also reminds us that the world was plunged into darkness when the sun was darkened on Good Friday and all light had gone out of life.
And yet, it is not the light of the moon that we look for when Easter comes. We begin to celebrate Easter during the night, when all lights have been extinguished and we stand alone in the darkness.
We, like Mary Magdalen and the other holy women, are guided to come to the sepulcher while it is still dark. We have within us a hope that is unseen but that shines in the darkness of our faith.
The light that we seek is the light born from the darkness of the tomb, the new fire that is struck in the darkness at the back of the Church, a fire that did not exist before, but which begins to shine now as it is hailed by all present: Lumen Christi! The Light of Christ!
That light blossoms on the Paschal Candle to shed light on all the world. Its flame passes from the Paschal Candle, spreading out to the candles of all those present without losing any of its glory!
As the Exultet sings, it is “A fire into many flames divided yet never dimmed by sharing of its light.” The light of Christ may seem small, yet it can give itself unstintingly to every person willing to receive it.
The moon is indeed very beautiful, but I would rather be a candle. The moon only reflects light, it doesn’t receive it. A candle receives light, for candles are lit by the Son.
Sister Gabriela of the Incarnation is a member of the Discalced Carmelites order in Flemington. Learn more at www.flemingtoncarmel.org.