Recall that Jesus always encourages us to ask, knock, and seek. “Tell
me what you want,” he says. Recall Jesus’ words to blind Bartimaeus. Jesus is
interested, transfixed in love by our need for him, our truth in its beauty, and
even its somewhat sad reality. And so at the end of the Beatitudes Jesus tells
the crowds, each of us, “You are the light of the world.” My response: “You’ve got the wrong party. No, Lord, it is You who are my Light, my
Salvation. You have lighted up my darkness, shown me the way through my
darkness to the wonderful Light of peace and truth and holiness that You are.”
But the Lord is insistent, as persistent as a lover, and he repeats, “Yes and you are the light of the world, you are my light.” It is achingly beautiful but
somehow unmanageable. Where to start? Let us start where Saint Bernard did - with
self-knowledge. “Know who you are.” This is the first truth. A story may help.
The story of Mary Lavelle, a modest, young Dublin girl. She lives at home with an
unappreciative, widowed father, an abusive man. Mary is engaged to be married.
Her fiancé is a simple man named John; he adores her. He will wait to marry
her so that he can accumulate enough to support her in grand style. She is
patient; believes she loves him. While waiting for her wedding day, she decides
on advice from a friend to work for a year abroad in Spain. Irish governesses
for the daughters of wealthy Spanish families are all the rage in the Twenties. And
she easily lands a job as a dueña, a
governess. She will teach and be companion to three young girls. Ah! There is one detail I’ve left out, that
I should tell you about Mary Lavelle. She is gorgeous, ravishingly beautiful;
no one can resist her! Spain,
it would seem, all of Spain
is stirred by her presence. Young children dance around her when she sits in an
open-air café chanting, “Guappa! Guappa!
- “Beautiful! Beautiful one!” And the father of the family finds sleepy corners
of his heart reawakened by her sweet beauty. The girls, her charges, adore her,
totally captivated. Only society ladies believe the mother of the family would
be foolish to keep Mary as the dueña
for her daughters - her beauty will clearly eclipse that of her girls at their
coming-out parties. The truth is - it is mutual; all of Spain stirs
Mary’s heart, the lush landscape, the bullfights, the fiery music. She finds it
all too much. And so, she begins to discover her passion and the power of her
beauty. The consequences are truly tragic, even horrible! Mary Lavelle falls desperately in love with
the married son of the family, Juanito, and he with her. He is remarkably
handsome with a lovely, charming wife and a new baby son. The two acknowledge
their love, trying to be thoughtful, restrained, deliberate, and resolute about
their previous promises and obligations. But Mary soon can bear it no longer. I
need not tell you much more. Tragedy. She seduces him. Their lives are ruined. But what is the tragic flaw of Mary Lavelle? Perhaps it is that she never knew how beautiful she was, how desirable she was,
the power of her beauty, and the depth of her desire to see her beauty mirrored in
another. She discovers her dignity, her worthiness, her desirableness, and perhaps most importantly, the responsibility of her beauty too late. (Kate
O’Brien, Talk of Angels.)
“Small wonder the tragedy occurred,” Saint Bernard might say,
“for she clearly missed the point, the crucial first step.” It is what Jesus tells us, like those little
delighted little children at Mary’s favorite café- “Beautiful! Beautiful! Guappa! Guappa!” His words to us are - “You
are the light of the world.” If only you knew your exquisite brilliance, your
dignity in Christ; if only you knew God’s gift, who is asking you for a drink,
a nod, even a kiss. If only you knew God’s desire for you, everything
would be changed and transformed. “His desire gives rise to yours,” says Saint Bernard, “and if you are eager to receive his word, it is He who is rushing to
enter your heart; for He first loved us, not we Him.” Desirable, as necessary as light in darkness to show the way.
Knowing I am beautiful, gleaming, splendid light. Light from Light, embedded in
God, in his image, in God’s beauty, God’s Light. I am of God. In him, I am light from
Light. Dare I boast of it, glory in it, know my truth? If not, says Saint
Bernard, “What glory is there in having something you do not know you have?”
Photograph by Charlie O'Connor. Meditation by one of the monks.
