What Shall Not Be Overcome
light in the darkness, rebellious beauty, and sacred hope
Happy St. Lucia’s Day! We’re just about a week away from the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year.
Tomorrow I will wake up at 5am and drive downtown for a traditional Rorate Mass, celebrated in the Extraordinary Form. It has become an Advent tradition of mine since I first attended this strange, beautiful Mass eight years ago. It is perhaps one of the few times I have truly felt lost in mystery, stunned into sacred silence.
This is a post I re-shared last year about that experience, and about how strongly we need to claim Light in these Dark days.
I hope you enjoy it! My youngest daughter is Lucia - Lucy - and a truly, wildly beautiful light, so it's a special day in our house.
Happy Feast Day! St. Lucia pray for us!
"Rorate caeli désuper et nubes pluant justum"
("Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just")
Introi, Entrance Antiphon
My car smelled like hot coffee and I drove carefully down the country lane, heading toward the highway. It was dark, before 6AM, and though the morning was warmer than previous ones this week, I was still bundled in coat and scarf, heat on high. I was on my way to pick up a friend who had committed to going with me to the traditional Advent “Rorate Mass” in the city.
I have a newly mobile baby that had woken up at 2:30AM for an hour long “practice crawling” party and my friend was not a morning person. Without that big cup of coffee and the fact that we were holding each other accountable, I doubt either of us would have made it downtown. I wistfully thought of my husband and daughter, comfortably curled up in bed, as we navigated the eerie glare of city streets. So what had drawn us from the comfort of our homes on a dark December morning?
The light.
Specifically, candlelight.
The Rorate Mass is lit only by candlelight. The swooping arches and beautiful stained glass of the Shrine were cast in shadows, the altar awash in votive candles. In the creaking pews, worshipers knelt, reverently holding their own individual flickering candles. We sat down. The wax dripped hot on my hand and startled me. I tried to balance the candle steady as we looked on and the choir began their soaring chant. A dignified line of priests, deacons, and altar boys made their way down the aisle in the dim light. We knelt as the crucifix passed our pew. Because it is a votive Mass in Mary’s honor, white vestments are worn instead of Advent violet. The white vestments glowed warm in the candlelight as a trail of incense rose toward the altar.
As the sun rose, the Church filled with light - imitating the Light of the World, the coming of Christ, the baby in the manger, that we are all waiting for in this hushed, dark season of Advent. As our candles, by now a near puddle of wax, were blown out and the line formed for Holy Communion, I looked up to see that the shadows had faded, and the warm reds and rich blues of the stained glass shone bright in the morning light. A host of saints and angels looked down at me from the heights. The darkness, after all, is always temporary.
“May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
It is easy to forget, in the age of electric lights, what a dark month this is. On December 21st, the shortest day of the year, the amount of daylight ranges from almost eleven hours in Hawaii to zero hours in Northern Alaska. For centuries, mankind has turned to firelight, flickering in the darkness - for warmth, for light, for a safe place to gather and tell stories deep into the long, cold night. The softness of candlelight dims the harshness of the dark, promising rest and comfort. And still, today, with buzzing, bright screens in our hands, it is a gentler light we seek.
As I write this, I look up at our Christmas tree, white lights casting our living room in a magical, warm glow that can only belong to this time of year. No wonder that this time, when the Liturgical Year falls into a Rhythm with Nature, Darkness growing ever closer, ever longer, ever stronger… We rebelliously, hopefully…
light our Christmas Trees.
burn our Advent candles.
light fires in the fireplace and long tapered candles on our dinner tables.
huddle together in a dark church at dawn, holding our candles in the shadows.
We are waiting for, hoping for, the Light that will Never Fade, “the light that shines in the darkness.”
On December 13th, we celebrate the feast of St. Lucy, virgin and martyr - a saint of such renown that she is one of the saints mentioned by name in the Roman Canon of the Mass, one of only seven female saints listed. The story of St. Lucy brings us back to a tumultuous time in Roman history, when Christians were persecuted and sent into hiding in underground catacombs. The devout and pious Lucy would make her way down into those dark passageways, her arms full of food and supplies for the faithful, a wreath of candles on her head lighting the way. Her jealous and jilted pagan fiance reported her to the authorities who tried to make an example of her to other Christians, forcing her to endure humiliation and torture. Though she was miraculously spared many of the torments attempted, she was ultimately martyred (her eyes gouged out - hence her patronage of the blind - and stabbed in the neck) in 304AD.
Today St. Lucy is celebrated with a variety of festivals around the world, most of them involving light (Lucy, of course, coming from the Latin for Light, ‘lux’). In Scandinavian countries, where some regions will only see four hours of sunlight, St. Lucy processions are an important opportunity to remind people deep in the darkness of winter, that light is coming.
Traditionally, “the oldest daughter of a family will wake up before dawn on St. Lucy's Day and dress in a white gown for purity, often with a red sash as a sign of martyrdom. On her head she will wear a wreath of greenery and lit candles, and she is often accompanied by 'Star Boys,' her small brothers who are dressed in white gowns and cone-shaped hats that are decorated with gold stars, and carrying star-tipped wands. 'St. Lucy' will go around her house and wake up her family to serve them special St. Lucy Day foods which were usually baked sweets.” (‘Feast of St. Lucy’)
(If you’re interested in incorporating some St. Lucy’s Day festivity in your own home but are a little tentative about your daughter twirling around the house with a wreath of lit candles on her head, Etsy has these electric candle wreath options. Here’s also a great recipe for the traditional ‘saint lucia safron buns’ if you’d like to do some liturgical baking.)
These warm and beautiful candlelit processions remind us that St. Lucy, and all the saints, in a perfect reflection of the True Light, light the way for the rest of us as we grapple in the darkness of Time this side of the veil.
“In the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing:
there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
In the homily during the Rorate Mass, the priest described a startling photograph. Taken in 1932, a lit menorah stands in stark contrast to the ominous Nazi swastika in the background. On the back of this photo, Rachel Posner, a Rabbi’s wife, scribbled, “‘Death to Judah’ so the flag says, ‘Judah will live forever,’ so the light answers.”
The Jewish faith also reflects the rebelliousness, the insistence, of light this time of year. Hanukkah, The Festival of Lights, recalls the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem when oil that should have only burned for one night, burned for a full eight. The Miracle of the Oil was a public testament to the resiliency of light over darkness, of faith over doubt.
And when, thousands of years later, Rachel Posner lit her eight candles in defiance of the cruel and powerful Nazi flag, she too proclaimed the eternity of Truth - Death to Jews - to God - the flag says, but the Jews, and their God, will live forever, so the light answers.
And the light is an answer. Orthodox Jews rock while they pray to make their bodies like a flickering candle. I think about this as I rock my baby. An active, eternal prayer, a giving up, a sacrifice, a light in the darkness, a parent’s love for their child, flickering, rocking, lighting the darkness.
In a time where “who do you follow?” will most likely illicit a list of celebrity social media influencers, I think of the Magi, who followed the light of a Star.
I think of how Archbishop Fulton Sheen said of the Virgin Mary - she is the Moon, Christ is the Sun. The Moon has no light of its own, but reflects the light of the Sun brilliantly in the night sky. I think of this when I remember that Mary held Christ, her son, the Son, dead in her arms. She held the burnt embers, the smoke and ash, the Light Gone Out, on that Dark Good Friday. “Without Him, she is nothing. With Him, she is the Mother to all Men,” Archbishop Sheen expounded.
“When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the
star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till
it came and stood over where the young child was.”
- Matthew 2:9
Maybe this December, turn off the electric lights. Sit in the dark and the cold of this hallowed, waiting Time. And when it becomes too much, light a candle and remember St. Francis who said, “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”
It can be hard to believe in the Light. We live in a world of Shifting Shadows and waning Days. But on a cold morning in Baltimore, there were hymns being sung and candles being lit and prayers being prayed.
There was Light in the Darkness.
“Yes,” said Queen Lucy. “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”
C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
I looked up at the altar, swimming in the warmth of so many flickering candles, the physical embodiment of humanity’s ongoing hope and repeated prayer, Rorate Caeli, Drop Down Ye Heavens, meet me here, in the thinness of the veil, if only for a moment…
And in that moment, I truly believed, the Darkness Has Not Overcome It.
This essay was originally published online in December 2021.