In Colors

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The Light of the World.

Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

Jn 8:12

Author Edward P. Sri writes that “The way of the kingdom was the way of peace, and it involved gathering all peoples, even the Jewish oppressors. Rome and Herod were not enemies to be conquered, but brethren to be gathered back into God’s covenant family.”^[1] This very notion is the overall theme or concept that I try to answer within these words and by the Grace of God do so in a manner that is in complete conjunction with the Catholic Church teachings, Traditions, and Magisterium.

Within the many teachings of the Church and within Scripture, God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit are described or portrayed as lights and one can reason that we are products of that perception.^[2] We are taught that the brilliant white light of the Father is so intense and pure that no one can see past, thru, or into it. When we look at the Transfiguration and Christ’s garment are shown as a glowing brilliant light, such as no one^[3] on earth could bleach them^[4]. We are in fact seeing a mere glimpse of the Father through the prism of Christ’s flesh. Finally we see the Holy Spirit portrayed as a tongue of flame^[5], a burning light for all to see at Pentecost, potentially turning all into lamps on a table, lights for the world to see^[6].

With this realization the Light of God is twofold revealed to us in Christ, and thus within the reality that is our existence, we are made up of two distinct and unique parts or portions that make up the whole. Our consciousness and our flesh, the elemental aspects of physicality and spirituality. Christ himself portrays this very notion in John 3:5-7 ^“Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.⁶ What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.^[7] A realism of the distinct parts that make us whole; a truth and cannot be denied. Both aspects coming together making a person exactly what they are, individuals. Any distortion seen upon one affects the other. Instability or darkness of the consciousness portion or disease or some malady on the physical portion, will inevitably contribute to the distortion of one's being itself.

As we are so created in the image of God, we too can be seen as ‘lights.’ Formed out of clay and the breath of the God, water and spirit. A brilliant white light, visa-vi Adam.^[8] Upon the fall and the advent of original sin, we became wrought with imperfections. What we call concupiscence, the human races’ proclivity to sin. Lights askew in relationship to the one true light, Christ, the New Adam.^[9] In the flesh we are lights that are askew or a mere part of the purity of the white of Christ’s brilliant light. We can be characterized as lights that are seen as red ones, blue ones, yellow ones, etcetera. Each unique, as separate from the next and yet connected as shown when white light is passed through a prism. Inexhaustible in variation or hue as one can see across the spectrum. Countless shades making up the one spectrum of light that is both seen and unseen. Decimal places to the n^th degree within the wavelength frequencies that make the color of perceived white light seen through a prism.

We are seen within this makeup of the varying shades of light. The orange light of the anarchist to the teal light of the pacifist and all the variations in between and beyond. Our unique personalities, our personas making us who we are. Flesh of the earth made whole with the light of God. Our very ‘essence’ is derived from that unique light incorporated within each of us by the very breath of God, each unique in flesh and yet so similar within one likeness or ‘one breath.’

The concept of light, however, is one that can be used against us. One must also be aware of the false lights of Lucifer^[10] or light bearer and his minions which use this characteristic of our essence against us to keep us ‘looking’ away from the true light of Christ. Planting the seeds of deceit and hatred amongst his children.^[11] The ability to see the deceit of the evil one is through one’s faith that the very cleansing power of Christ’s forgiveness and compassion for us is an absolute cleansing power that enables all to walk in Christ’s light and become beacons to that light.

God the Father is beyond the brightest of all light. One cannot fathom or truly understand His light, peer into it, touch it, or interact with it^[12] lest our flesh be destroyed. While His Son, the Light or Word of the Father made flesh, is of this world with whom we can see and touch^[13]. This truth was then revealed to all in the Transfiguration^[14]. Christ, the brilliant light of the Father expressed in the ‘shinning’ face of Moses^[15] was made flesh^[16] and all can look upon him without being blinded, burnt, or destroyed. This very notion Christ himself professes when he proclaims, “I am the light of the world.”^[17] “As I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”^[18]

Our perceptions and how we are seen is unique to each one of us. Yet within this uniqueness we have commonality with all humanity. While within our existence we tend to gravitate to those whose light is like our own. The orange light of the anarchist attracts others of the same hue. Conversely, the teal light of the pacifist also attracts those of similar lights. Both tend to form groups, share common goals, ideals, etcetera.^[19]

Where this is leading is the realization that as children of God, all lights are of Him who created us; He whose very breath gives life to us. Each a variation of the true white light of the Father askew by sin and flesh. A realization that, irrespective of one’s faith, beliefs or even nonbelief, there is the undeniable reality that we all are made up of consciousness and physicality or spirit and flesh. It is this very notion of consciousness that to Christians is the breath of God, clay made life.^[20] Physicality coming together with consciousness to become an individual human being. What a non-believer sees as a culmination of a multitude of coincidences coming together perfectly to evolve over a vast length of time into what we are, homo sapiens.

As Christ so explained to the Apostles “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk-in darkness but will have the light of life.”¹² Thus, when we walk in the light of Christ is it then wrong to have an orange light, no; is it wrong to have a teal light, no. Once we realize the truth that we all come from the same place and that we are all are brothers and sisters of one Father. This goes way beyond any perception, religion, nationality, or race, we are all part of God our Creator’s family. All unique individuals and yet all so similar in the commonality of being a fundamental truth in reality within a worldly expression of reason.

The reality or circumstance we often find ourselves in is one where God is denied. He has been relegated to the realm of a superstition, a figment of one’s imagination, unprovable and thus not real or at a minimum not of this world, the atheistic view of God^[21] or the more agnostic^[22] view whereby there is a god, but he has nothing to do with my reality; St. Paul so warned us in Heb 3:12. Within this scenario the very salvation we seek, we deny as being real or viable. The overall view that one alone can determine one’s own fate and by our own hands. Doing so in the manner one sees as the true way, perhaps by means of anarchistic principles or by means pacifistic approaches.

Either way, the overall point is that when we come together in the flesh without the prism of God, Christ, and our perceptions are seen as the only true path and all others are merely obstacles in the way of achieving our goals, the resultant union is then black. Grab that 128-count box of crayons and start to put on paper an amalgamation of all 128, we get black. The color of nothing or a result of no color irrespective that this amalgamation is made up of all colors. This is somewhat true of all elements of the flesh or physical world in the context of the combining of equal and opposite forces, the resultant is always zero.

However, when we look at light there is a different conclusion. This is both physical: of this world explainable and measurable and metaphysical, unmeasurable, and unseeable. The very reason throughout biblical and theological texts light has been used to describe God or the effects of God as best as He can be described. The essence of light is so close to the truth that is God which we can partially conceive the unconceivable through reason. When visible light is divided into its most basic elements, we see the rainbow, when we combine all the colored lights of that rainbow, we get white etcetara. This is relative to our own existence in the sense that we are made up of individual lights derived from God our creator, metaphysical and unseen as well as physical lights or personas seen and part of who we are, from anarchist to pacifist.

That is what the Father showed Peter, James, and John on Mt. Tabor in Christ.⁸ If we come together through the prism of God, Christ, we can see the Father's bright white light. Christ himself described this very notion when He told the Apostles, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”^[23] This is the very thing I speak of, differing lights that come together in Christ’s name will always walk away in peace for He is with them. The more that come together in Christ the closer we look like God the Father; of whose image we were created, thus, when all colors of each light are brought together as one, we become more ‘like’ God, the communing that is Mother Church. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”^[24]

The overall concept is seen throughout the Gospels and the writings of St. Paul for example: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”^[25] St. Paul reiterates this theme throughout his writings as expressed in his letter to the Ephesians “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”^[26]

This concept of the flesh is expressed within the reality that is Christ, all colored lights, humanity, coming together as one bright white light, through all and in all. As God the Father is as is, expressed to Moses as “I Am Who I Am.”^[27] The ability for us children to express the truth of God the Father comes to us through his begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Christ tells us this quite succinctly in Jn 14:12 “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; ...” In reality this conceptual aspect of humanity is seen in all religions of the world. Bits of truth outside of Christ yet all born of Christ through the Father. Unique colors coming from the one white light, all have aspects of the whole, God or the truth who Is, merely being seeing in the skewed ‘color’ they perceive to be their truth.

I do believe that the points so eloquently made some 2000 years ago are truth and therefore every enduring. A reality that we are made up of flesh and consciousness created from something outside of ourselves; albeit, God or time, based upon the color of one’s light or perception. This endurance of truth for all Christians is seen throughout the millennium as the Church whereby in faith the gates will never fall.^[28] The very institution given by Christ as one with the one who sent him to all His children; ‘baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free.’ The Fathers indiscrimination is throughout, in the spirit we are one with the Father and in the flesh, we are one with Christ together we are made one or complete in the Love of the Holy Spirit.

When the one spirit comes together with the one flesh we are, created, conceived made whole and made creatures of God. By this union we develop into individual unique personas or colors called individuals. This union of two very distinct elements creating oneness, a person, a child, a son, a daughter; each unique and yet the same. The coming together or a union that is the Love of the Father seen by all his creation, which God the Father was pleased for it was ‘very good’^[29]. A unity of elements coming together to become one, the very essence of the Trinity, the Father the - Word or breath, the beloved Son – Word made flesh, and Holy Spirit - binding Love.^[30]

The core of Christ’s teaching is this unity through Him, the essence of God made whole on earth, a new Jerusalem, a city on a hill for all to see.^[31] A concept which is also the very essence of the concept of Christian marriage as put forth by Christ when describing the will of the Father; “…and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”^[32] Two unique individual parts coming together to make one. These unique parts coming together as one in the flesh and of the flesh and coming together in spirit bound together by common love to create new life.

Any marriage lived in this manner will never fall and the gates of hades will never overcome, sound familiar, an overwhelming commonality of Christian doctrine and expressed throughout all of Christendom, merely a reflection of Christ incarnate. The end game, so to speak, is that of union and harmony of one’s ‘essence’ itself.

We cannot see or truly begin to understand the Father, so He sent His son. Within the Son we are given a glimpse of the Father. The Father’s Love for us; in that He sent His only begotten Son for our salvation.^[33] Once more this coming together or unity is the very core of the Christian tradition. The orange anarchist coming together with the teal pacifist to become one in love and for love. The pacifist acting as an anarchist and the anarchist acting as a pacifist simply to please the other. Born out of love for the other, achieving harmony, done so in love and not want. Each achieving their goals through the love of the other and not in the selfish desires of the individuals, personas, or ‘colors.’

With the above perception in mind is not in any way a capitulation or the act of one to acquis to the other but on the contrary, this is the very ideal so set forth within the commands of Christ for us all. We are not commanded to go out and overpower or conquer or enemies but rather love them. Love them in a manner that does not forsake our own ideals or color but rather love them as Christ loved us. One can see the intent by looking at the very ideal expressed in turn the other cheek^[34], a standing of ground, not capitulation, but rather the act of slapping back without slapping, the anarchist pacifying without being a pacifist. An evil action countered with the equal and opposite reaction of goodness, a move towards peace. The key is that this reaction is based in love of the other, a desire for the good of the other simply for that good itself, love, God.

This concept is not a radical new idea or some magic trick to overpower our enemies, but it is a means to an end. A famous example concerns Bishop Tutu of South Africa, a South African Anglican and starch opponent of Apartheid. When he was a young priest in Johannesburg, he was making his way one day along a raised wooden sidewalk over the muddy street. He came to a narrow spot on the sidewalk and was met by a white man who was a racist. The white man said, “Get off the sidewalk, I don’t make way for gorillas.” Tutu got off the sidewalk, gestured broadly and said, “I do.”^[35] A pacifist acting as an anarchist without becoming one, merely acting so in love of the other.

There is such a vast treasure trove of writings and teachings on the subject. We in the flesh have an undeniable consuming desire to understand ourselves, our being, our existence. While we pursue this understanding, however, it will always fall short if we do not consider the essence of this being, our soul, our consciousness. As our perceptions, our color is uniquely part of who we are, this color is embossed within the makeup of the consciousness that we use to perceive the very understanding we seek. Thus, the teachings, writings and proclamations that have been brought forth on the subject, each coming from that unique color within.

The Church is among those whose works are presented to the world as a truth or understanding which comes from or is produced from the notions set forth in this paper. Many colors coming together, a college of laity, priests, and bishops to formulate or postulate answers to questions beyond our existence, the foundation of faith. These Synods and Councils^[36] are some of the tools used by the Church in formulating beliefs and understandings for these works and ideals the Church holds as truth, Dogma. For example, many documents published concerning the issues of social justice and the common good.^[37] I am merely expressing a point of view that I believe is in conjunction with these teachings. The undeniable truth that we cannot understand God our Father, but we can reasonably perceive Him through Christ.

The realization that the very concept of which I am speaking is in the infused image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the tilma of St. Juan Diego. The image preserved was emersed in iconic messages that the culture of Mexico would understand based upon their beliefs at the time of the sighting. Fr. Harold J. Rahm, S.J. in his book “Am I Not Here?”^[38] describes in detail the imagery left on the tilma of St. Juan Diego and the relationship to the understanding of the people. The message was in the perspective that the Indigenous peoples could understand; the Blessed Mother, queen of Peace the ultimate pacifist, speaking a message of peace in anarchy to the anarchists.

With this notion in mind, one should ask how would one who is a pacifist speak in anarchy to the anarchists. Are tilmas no longer available, are we unfortunately left to our own devices? On the contrary, this is the very core of the proposition posed within this text; by the very grace of God, through the Holy Spirit, and in Christ all things are possible. We have at our fingertips the Church and the teachings they provide as our guides.

REFERENCES

^[1] Edward P. Sri, Mystery of the Kingdom: On the Gospel of Matthew (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 1999), 61.

^[2] Robert L. Thomas, The Lockman Foundation, New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible: Updated Edition (Anaheim: Foundation Publications, Inc., 1998).

[3] Gk no fuller

[4] New American Bible, Revised Edition. (NABRE) (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011)., Mk 9:3.

[5] ibid, Act 2:3

[6] ibid, Mt 5:15

^[7] ibid, Jn 3:5–7.

[8] ibid, Gen 2:7.

^[9] ibid, 2 Cor 5:17.

^[10] William Whitaker, Dictionary of Latin Forms (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2012).

[11] NABRE, Mt 13:37

[12] ibid, Ex 3:4-5

^[13] Jason A. Fout, Fully Alive: The Glory of God and the Human Creature in Karl Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Theological Exegesis of Scripture (London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney: Bloomsbury T&T Clark; Bloomsbury, 2015).

[14] NABRE, Mt 17:2

[15] ibid, Ex 34:30

[16] ibid, 1 Jn 1:1-5, Jn 1:1-5

[17] ibid, Jn 8:12

[18] ibid, Jn 14:11

[19] Kristine Keller M.A., “Oil and Vinegar: Why Opposites Don’t Attract,” accessed February 20, 2021, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-young-and-the-restless/201210/oil-and-vinegar-why-opposites-dont-attract.

^[20] Francis Aveling, “Man,” ed. Charles G. Herbermann et al., The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church (New York: The Encyclopedia Press; The Universal Knowledge Foundation, 1907–1913).

^[21] ibid, “Atheism.”

^[22] Edmund Shanahan, “Agnosticism,” ed. Charles G. Herbermann et al., The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church (New York: The Encyclopedia Press; The Universal Knowledge Foundation, 1907–1913).

[23] NABRE, Mt 18:20.

[24] ibid, Mt 5:48.

[25] ibid, 1 Co 12:12–13.

[26] ibid, Eph 4:4–6.

^[27] ibid, Ex 3:14.

^[28] ibid, Mt 16:18–19.

[29] ibid, Gen 1:31

^[30] Augustine of Hippo, “On the Trinity,” in St. Augustin: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. Arthur West Haddan, vol. 3, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887).

^[31] NABRE, Mt 5:14.

[32] ibid, Mt 19:5, Gen 2:24

[33] ibid, 1 Jn 4:9

^[34] ibid, Mt 5:39–42.

[35] Catholicism Series - Episode 3: 27:47 – 28:12, Fr. Robert Baron, 2012

^[36] William Whitaker, Dictionary of Latin Forms, (DLF), (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2012).

[37] COMPENDIUM OF THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH, PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004, ISBN 88-209-7716-8, from: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html

[38] Rahm, H. J. (1963). Am I not here: Mother of the Americas our Lady of Guadalupe. Washington, NJ: International.