From the very prolog of John’s gospel Jesus is presented as light and this is also the case in today’s gospel reading: I have come to the world as light. Not that today’s world is totally and irreparably in darkness. There is light in this world and our presence at the Eucharist tells us that there is light in this world. But our world is looking at light through cataracts and it keeps saying, as the Pharisees said to Jesus: We are not blind, are we? [Jn. 9: 40].

Our society is not aware of its blurred vision, because it is the only vision many people have come to know and they have grown up used to that blurred vision: “that is how vision is.” It is not unlike the situation of the so-called “cocaine babies”: it is not their fault that they are addicted and not aware of it, for to them “that is how life is.” It is not their fault that they are addicted, not a matter of bad will, but they are addicted nonetheless, just as we are addicted to, and comfortable with, our darkness.

From the cross Jesus said: “they do not know what they are doing” [Lk. 23: 34] and that is the situation with many people today. Our world is not whistling in the dark, because it does not even recognize its darkness. In this darkened world, through baptism we all share in the Lord’s mission to be light, precisely by the way we live. We need to pray for light: for ourselves and for others, for our society, for the world, for all those living in unrecognized darkness.