A man took a little trip with his third little boy, age four years old. It was the first time the father and his son had been away by themselves, just the two of them away from home. The first night they spent in a hotel. The father moved his bed close to his son. And they were both tucked in, he turned out the lights. And after about four or five minutes, a little voice said, “You know dad, it’s sure dark in here”. “Yes”, said his father, “It’s pretty dark but everything will be fine.” There was silence for one or two more minutes and then the son reached over and took his daddy’s hand. And the little boy said to his dad, “Dad, I’ll just hold your hand for a while, just in case you get scared”.

We listened in today’s gospel, “Whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so their works may be clearly seen as done in God”. There is a darkness and starkness in Lent because often a darkness and even a blindness in our own lives because of our lives. But the way of Jesus is not blindness, rather light. True story from my childhood. As a child, I loved, loved the circus, went several times with my family. I loved all the acts. I loved the animals. I loved the candy. I loved the popcorn, loved the cotton candy. Did I say I loved the candy? I loved the ice cream. I loved to eat all that sweet stuff at the circus. But most of all, I especially loved the trapeze performance. I was always fascinated by the trapeze performance. There was a special relationship between the flyer and the catcher, the daredevil flyer swinging high above the crowd lets go of the trapeze to simply stretch out his arms and to wait for the strong arms of the catcher plucking him out of the air.

But here’s the key: The flyer must never catch the catcher, the flyer must wait in absolute trust. Let me say it again. The flyer must never catch the catcher, the flyer must wait in absolute trust and surrender. For God so loved the world that He gave us His only Begotten Son. Love exists. Evil exists. Beauty exists. Spirituality exists. We do not define them, they define us. When we attempt to define love, we discover, not its limits, but rather our own. Nor do we catch God, God the Eternal Catcher, the Eternal Light, catches us.