Morning Prayer: The Light in Scripture
From today's hymn: “For no one can persist in sin when light bears witness to our guilt.” The hymn makes a bold claim: that light —once revealed—interrupts the momentum of sin. But the line is not naïve. We know perfectly well that sins occur at every hour of the day. Human beings are capable of doing harm in broad daylight, under fluorescent bulbs, in the full visibility of others, and even with a clear intellectual understanding of right and wrong. So what is this light that “bears witness” and refuses to let sin remain undisturbed? The nature of the “light” The Church has always understood “light” in Scripture and hymnody as more than physical illumination. It is the presence of truth—God’s truth—breaking into the interior world. It is the moment when the conscience stirs. It is the sudden clarity that exposes what we would prefer to keep hidden. It is the awareness that our actions have consequences, that they wound, that they distort us. This light is not merely information...