Central Standard Time and Sunday morning recently had one of their twice yearly encounters.
Remembering to set the clock back and getting to Mass on time is always a pleasant accomplishment in spite of now having to turn the lights on a little earlier.
I like to think that going to Mass is usually the first thing we do after bidding farewell to Daylight Saving Time. Mass is all about light and saving and time. Maybe a story can help illustrate this.
A man was going home late from work and accidentally dropped his car key in the dark parking lot. A passerby saw him under the street light, asked what he was looking for, and offered to help. But first he wanted to know where he dropped it. The man pointed toward the parking lot. The passerby then asked him why he was not looking over there instead of under the street light. The man said, a little impatiently, “because this is where the light is.”
I submit that one of the many reasons we go to Mass is because it is where the light is; it is where salvation is; it is where the presence of our Lord in time is. Addressing the personal, familial, and communal issues that can cloud and shadow any of our lives is put into perspective at Mass.
Like the key in the parking lot, our losses in life, our struggles, are sometimes outside the light we need in order to fully see and understand them. This can be true of our successes, too. It is when we go to Mass and place ourselves in the light of Christ’s presence there that darkness can become as day.
Through Christ’s presence in the public gathering of his faithful, in the inspired words of Sacred Scripture, in the priest, and most powerfully in the Eucharistic Body and Blood, we join with the members of the Body of Christ and pray with Jesus’ prayer to the Father and love with Jesus’ love for the Father. We seek out the light of Christ first and then ask that he show us the way to what we are looking for in life; that he will show us how to find him even in the darkness.
Msgr. Daniel Ganshert is the vicar general of the Diocese of Madison.