Episode Transcript  

One

The Origin and the Transmission of Good

Have you ever been to one of those old churches where there are high, massive, stained-glass windows, with all kinds of pictures and patterns? You look up at these windows during the daytime, and the color is just overwhelming. It looks as though the window is producing so much light and color, it’s filling the Church with its brilliance. But then, if you go back to the church in the middle of the night, and you look up at the same window, you realize that it didn’t have any light or brilliance at all. Now that the sun has set, the window is dark and dull. It doesn’t have any brilliance of its own, it’s not an inherently luminescent reality, and it certainly doesn’t have the power to illuminate anything else. All the brilliance it had came from the sun. And the only power it had to brighten up the Church was based on its ability to transmit light that came from somewhere else.

That’s the relationship between God and us. God is the source of all goodness; creatures have absolutely no good on their own, for the very simple reason that they have absolutely no existence of their own. All their goodness is borrowed from God, just like the glow of a stained-glass window is borrowed from the glow of the sun. The best we can do is temporarily transmit a little of God’s goodness, the way a Church window temporarily transmits a little of the sun’s light.

So which do we want? The source of all light, or just light’s temporary conduit?

Two

Choosing a Temporary Transmitter

Imagine some cave-dwelling barbarian came into a great Cathedral one day, and he saw the magnificent stained-glass rose window, and was amazed. He didn’t understand the relationship between the window and the sun, he thought the window had its own supply of light. He thought that the window had the power, by itself, to illuminate the darkness. And so the Barbarian came to the Cathedral again with an army, and took possession of the Church, and he tore the stained-glass window out of the Church, and he brought it back to his dark cave. 

What would happen? Pure disappointment. The window, ripped from God and ripped from the Church, would have no light, no brilliance, nothing to give him. This is what people do when they pursue some good thing more than or instead of God, when they rip human goods out of the context of the life of the Church. The goods become disconnected from the only thing that gives them meaning, that gives them the power to even partially satisfy. 

Hell is a created good separated from God, ripped out of the life of the Church. Hell is living in a cave with a stained-glass window that once shone gloriously, but now is nothing other than dead, dark glass.

Three

From created goodness to Uncreated goodness

Now imagine a different response to a stained-glass window. Imagine a man who sees a stained-glass window in a Cathedral for the first time and asks, “What makes it shine like that? What makes it glow?” Someone would answer him, “The light makes it glow.” He would say, “What light?” And someone would answer, “The light from the sun.” And he would say, “Then the sun must be very beautiful.”

This is the path of wisdom, to ask where creatures get their existence, their goodness, their beauty. And then to follow that trail to the source.

This is exactly the path that Plato recommends. Listen to the speech he reports from Socrates, that immortal ideal of the philosopher, “The true order of love is to rise from the beauties of earth to higher beauty, using each as a step until one beholds absolute Beauty itself. And if man had eyes to see that Beauty—divine, pure, and unalloyed, untouched by mortal vanity—and could converse with it, then he would bring forth not images but realities, nourishing true virtue, becoming the immortal friend of God. Would that be a shameful life?”

Don’t set your heart on the stained-glass window. Set your heart on whatever has given that stained-glass window its power to shine. Don’t set your heart on created goods. Set your heart on the Infinite God who lends His goodness to every good we behold around us

Four

The Beatitudes

God is the source of all that is good. But we seek our identity, happiness, and security in the good things of this world, professions, children and grandchildren, health, etc. And these become disordered attachments that prevent us from possessing God completely. That doesn’t mean professions or kids or health is bad. But in the Beatitudes, Jesus is calling us to love the lesser things less, the greatest thing more! 

Professions are good. Children are very good. Health is good. The respect of others is good. Self-confidence is good. Pleasure is good. Tranquility is good. But anyone who won’t let go of these goods in their earthly form is like the barbarian who takes a stained-glass window to his dark cave.

If you love light, if you really love splendor and the beauty of brilliant colors, you’ll let windows pass you by on your quest to find the sun. 

Five

The Lord of Light

One day, on top of a mountain, Christ revealed Himself as the Lord of Light. His face and clothing became impossibly brilliant and glorious. His light was not a reflection or a transmission of the light of the sun. He is the source of all light, the Light He emanates with the Father of Lights. In His light, we see light. Jesus on Tabor wasn’t reflecting light from the sun. Quite the opposite: the sun in the sky gets its light from the Son of God.

Peter, James, and John wanted to stay on that mountain forever. They knew that here, in the presence of the glorified Christ, they had come to the source of all goodness, all beauty, all being. They weren’t allowed to stay that day. But because they followed the beatitudes and were willing to leave behind any created good, they stand before Him now. And so may we some day. And that’s why Christ says to those who live the beatitudes, “Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. For your reward is great in heaven.”

That reward is nothing less than Himself, the concentration and sum of all goodness and beauty. He’s waiting for us now and will let us into His presence if we pursue Him above all else.

Suggested Resolutions:

Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you. 

• Bring the presence of Christ into all of your joys today by thanking Him for everything you do, either in the moment, or at the end of each day.

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