Night
‘God is light and in him there is no darkness’ (1 Jn 1:5) Yet darkness is his creation (Isa 45:7). Darkness, whether that which surrounds us or that which we carry within, is not necessary evil. It can enter God’s providential plan by revealing light. The refrain of St Francis’s Canticle of Creatures, Laudato si’, is on everyone’s lips. That is good. But do we remember the following verse? ‘Praised be you, my Lord, for Brother Fire, through whom you illumine the night; and he is beautiful, joyful, robust and strong’. Without night’s darkness, who would notice from afar the fire which shows us the goal of our pilgrimage, the sign of a faithful but discreet communion, a sign that beckons but does not blind?
Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per frate Focu, per lo quale ennallumini la nocte: ed ello è bello et iocundo et robustoso et forte.
