XIII. To Enlighten Those in Darkness and the Shadow of Death

From the Series: Beneath the Standard of Mary – The Heart and Voice of an Auxiliary Member

Sadly, so many people in this world are living in darkness right now.

And here is the thing that breaks my heart. They do not even know what they are missing. The sun could be shining full and bright directly on their face and they are still in darkness, because the darkness I am talking about is not the absence of sunlight; it is the absence of Jesus in their life. And when that light is missing from a human life, no amount of external brightness can fill the space where it belongs. The soul and the heart know, even when the mind has convinced itself otherwise, something deep inside a person knows that something is wrong, that something is missing, that there has to be more than this.

There is, and there always was: His name is Jesus.

We must enlighten those around us. Not lecture them or judge them. We need to guide them, gently, lovingly, persistently, back toward the path. And if they have never known the path at all, then we sit down with them and we tell them our story; our conversion and our personal encounter with the love of Jesus Christ. Because the most powerful thing you will ever say to a person in darkness is not a theological argument. It is the simple honest testimony of what happened to you when the light came on.

I have found two things that work above everything else when it comes to reaching people who are lost.

The first is prayer. Pray for them every single day, by name. We have a dozen or more people we lift up by name every day, people who are struggling, people who have wandered, people who are carrying things nobody should have to carry alone. And every time I see one of those people I tell them. I tell them I am praying for them every single day. Not to impress them, it is out of sincere love from my heart for them. And here is what I have noticed over the years, when you tell someone, you are praying for them every single day, something happens inside of them. They thank you, and they remember, and somewhere in the back of their mind, even if they would never say this out loud, they are thinking about it. They are carrying it with them. You have planted something in the dark soil of their heart, and you may never see it sprout but God sees it and He tends it.

The second is joy. Real, visible, uncontainable joy.

Think about this on a purely human level. We all know people who are obsessed with something. A sports team, a hobby, some collection they have. You do not have to ask them what they love, you already know before you open your mouth. It is on their car, in their yard, all over their house, on their face. Their whole life revolves around this thing that has captured their heart, and they are not embarrassed about it for one single second. That is the kind of person I am talking about. That is the kind of obsession I am describing. Except the focus of it is Jesus Christ. And the effect of it is that everywhere you go, before you say a single word, people already know. They see the Rosary. They see the Tau cross. They see something in your eyes that they cannot name but that they are drawn to. They see a joy that does not depend on circumstances, a peace that does not make any logical sense given everything going on in the world, and they want to know where it comes from.

That wanting is an open door. Walk through it with them.

The shadow of death is a real and terrifying place to be. I say that without exaggeration. When a person is that deep in darkness, when hopelessness has settled in that completely, their vision narrows. Think about what a shadow actually does. Depending on the light, depending on the angle, depending on how deep in the shadow you are standing, you literally cannot see. And the person who is lost does not need you to shout directions at them from the other side. They need you to walk in there with them. Bring the light with you. Bring love and compassion and zero judgment and the quiet unshakeable certainty that the One who said I am the light of the world meant every word of it.

Be the hands and feet of Jesus.

There is a song that has stayed with me for years. They will know we are Christians by our love. Not by our arguments, or our bumper stickers, not even by how loudly we can proclaim what we are against. Only by our love, that is, it. That is the whole strategy. Love people the way Jesus loves them, without condition, without agenda, without keeping score, and the light that is in you will begin to push back the darkness around them. Not because of anything you do. Because of who He is and what happens when He gets close to the dark.

Our Lady knows what it is to stand in the shadow of death. She stood at the foot of the Cross, she did not run, she did not look away. She stood there with a love so complete, so faithful, so utterly surrendered that even in the worst darkness the world had ever produced, she was still pointing toward her Son.

And we who carry and pray her Rosary are called to do the same, to walk into the dark places, the grieving places, the lost and forgotten and given-up-on places and point to Jesus. Not to ourselves. To Him alone.

Because Jesus is the light, He always was, and no darkness can overcome Him.