Once upon a time, my favorite book whisked me away on a new adventure each time I read it. I read that "Choose Your Own Adventure" story over and over, choosing every possible path over mountains, along trails, through the woods.
I still love stories. Stories of hope, of love, of triumph. Stories to dispel fear of darkness and imagined monsters.
More than ever in my life, now is when I need stories of hope to show me that light does and will break through the darkness. After a long global health crisis, while carrying some of the most splintery crosses in my life, I feel the weight of darkness. Darkness which threatens to overwhelm me.
So today I'm filled with joy to re-read a story from my favorite Gospel. It offers the greatest story of hope of all time, because the Word is the Light which cannot be overcome (John 1:5).
This light is Jesus Who became human in the Incarnation and walked among us. Still today, Christmas 2020, Jesus offers His very life so that you and I can accept Him and become children of God through Baptism. This is the greatest "choose your own adventure" story.
"Life with Christ is a great adventure," Pope Saint John Paul II is quoted as having said.
The adventure is allowing Jesus to shine into the darkest crevices of my heart, into my daily living, into my struggles with temptation and sin. He brings grace and life, continuing to write a story of hope and salvation in my life.
That's my favorite story: the triumph of God's promise. The Light shines in the darkness, sisters, and the darkness has not overcome it.