Beings of Light

Leonardo Boff

25/02/2008

Opinión

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Light is one of the biggest mysteries of the universe. Only if we understand it both as material particle and as an energetic wave we can understand it more or less adequately. We know now that all living beings emit light, bio-photons, from the DNA of the cells. This is why all irradiate a certain aura.

It is not for nothing that light and the sun have become powerful symbols of everything positive and vital. The radiant sun is especially seen as the great archetype of the hero and of the fighter that conquers darkness with all the monsters that usually hide within it. Its apparition every morning is not a repetition; each time is a novelty, because it is always different. It is a cosmic theater that begins da cappo, as if God were to say to the sun every morning: «Let's go. Do it again! Be born again! Radiate your light on all and in all directions!»

The majority of peoples feared that the sun could be swallowed up by darkness and would not be born again and illuminate the Earth and each of us. Rituals and feasts were created to celebrate the victory of the Sun over darkness. For example, the Roman feast of the Sol Invictus, the «Invincible Sun», that later gave rise to the Christian Nativity, the feast of the birth of God made flesh, called, «The Sun of Justice.» The feasts of June, with their bonfires, derive from the experience of the Sun, because they occur during the solstice (Winter in the South, Summer in the North.)

It used to be thought, and there is still now the emotional experience that the Sun, with its rays of light, is born as if it were a child. As it climbs in the firmament it is growing as an adolescent until it reaches adulthood at midday. By the afternoon it is languishing and reaching old age, until it dies behind the horizon. But, once the night has passed, it is born again, clean, brilliant, smiling like a child. Why not celebrate the Sun with holidays? Why not understand the Sun as the sign of the Reality that is the origin of all things?

In fact, it is a powerful image of God, as Saint Francis sang in his «Canticle to Brother Sun.» No metaphor of the divinity is more powerful than the one of light and of the Sun. The experience of light itself brought about the word Dios, God. This word derives from the Sanskrit word di, that means, to shine and to illuminate. From, di, come «dia, day» and «Dios», as expression of an experience of light and of illumination. As Saint John says: «God is light» (1Jn 1,5.) As Saint Paul says, «He has dwelling in unapproachable light.» (1Tim 6,16.) Jesus presents Himself as light: «I have come as a light unto the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.» (Jn 12,46). The incarnated Verb is «life and light of human beings,» «true Light which gives light to every person coming into the world.» (Jn 1.4.9.) There is a reason that He is presented as «the light of the world.» (Jn 9,5.) Those who follow Christ as light must live «as children of light.» (Ef 5,8.) And «the fruit of light is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.» (Ef 5,9.) Moreover, every follower must also be «the light of the world.» (Mt 5,14.)

As the funerals liturgy also reads: «That the souls of the faithful departed not fall into darkness, but that Archangel Saint Michael may lead them to holy light. And may perpetual light shine on them.»

All of us are beings of light. We were originally formed in the heart of the great red stars, thousands of millions of years ago. We carry light within us, in our bodies, in our hearts and in our minds. Above all, the light of the mind allows us to understand the processes of nature and to penetrate the intimacy of the persons, up to the luminous mystery of God. (Translation: Servicios Koinonia, Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas)

- Leonardo Boff is a theologian.

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/125884