In the very darkest season of the year, the feast of St Lucy shines brightly with a clarity taking us right through to the Heart of God.

St John Henry Newman wrote this prayer: ‘Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from you. It will be you who shines through me upon others. Give light to them as well as to me; light them with me, through me. Make me preach you without preaching — not by words, but by my example and by the sympathetic influence, of what I do — by my visible resemblance to Your saints, and the evident fullness of the love which my heart bears to you’.

May the Light of Christ shine in us and through us this day, and may God bless you.