What is darker? The night? Or, Death?
What is brighter? Light? Or, Life?
We all live in fear of darkness, real darkness. Few things are as frightening as total darkness, like the darkness of the grave. And there is nothing darker than death and sin.
We live in the hope of life. There is no greater hope than Eternal Life. There is no light brighter than the Hope of life.
People who lived prior to the birth of Jesus Christ, prior to the Christian Era, lived in a culture dominated by the fear of death. Sin and superstition were powerful. Superstition is the absence of God, the Father Almighty. St. Paul says they lived in darkness. Their religions were often based upon superstitions.
Look what happens with superstition. When you live in superstition and make room in your life for superstitions, you are in violation of the First Commandment:
I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD. YOU SHALL NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME.
When you make room in your life for superstitions, you are making space in your life for a belief that limits God in your life. When you follow superstitions you are saying that there are supernatural forces as powerful as God, that share divine powers with God. If you practice the belief that there are other forces that have powers similar to God’s power, then God is not almighty, all powerful, but simply one god among many divine forces. If you practice superstition God is not God for you. You have ceased to have faith in God, but in “strange gods”, strange, nameless gods. This is the realm of the Devil. This is dangerous for your eternal salvation, because God commands,
I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD. YOU SHALL NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME.
There is no harmless superstition. In superstition you are returning to the pagan times before the coming of the Messiah, the birth of Jesus Christ. You are returning to the pagan darkness, and the fears that ruled all of human culture and life before Jesus. You are returning to the godless darkness from which Jesus came to save us. Do you want to go back to those pagan times?
If you believe in witchcraft and “curanderos”, then you are living a belief that is strange to a Christian. You may have heard me compare superstition and witchcraft to cockroaches. When you go into your dark kitchen in the middle of the night and turn on the light, you may see cockroaches on the floor and counters. When you turn on the light what do they do? They run to dark places to hide. This is how it is with superstitions and witchcraft.
This is why the practices of the early Christian Church focused upon light. God’s light cast out darknesss. The Star led the three kings to the new King of Israel. In the feast of the Epiphany, Jesus was revealed to the world. That feast came many generations before the actual celebration of Christmas. Epiphany was the revelation of the Son of God. This feast was so great that the early Church began to consider the mystery of the Epiphany for 40 days, ending in the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, remembering when Mary and Joseph presented the baby Jesus in the Temple, according to Mosaic law, 40 days after birth.
When the days were completed for their purification
according to the law of Moses,
Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem
to present him to the Lord,
just as it is written in the law of the Lord,
Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,
and to offer the sacrifice of
a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,
in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.
But, something unusual happened at this presentation in the Temple.
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.
This man was righteous and devout,
awaiting the consolation of Israel,
and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit
that he should not see death
before he had seen the Christ of the Lord.
This is another Epiphany. Jesus was again revealed, in the Temple by a prophet. The early Church saw the importance of this moment. Simeon, at the end of his faithful life, was given by the Holy Spirit the gift of seeing the coming of the Messiah, the end of darkness in the world.
Paul understood the darkness in which the world lived. In the book of Hebrews we hear,
Since the children share in blood and flesh,
Jesus likewise shared in them,
that through death he might destroy the one
who has the power of death, that is, the Devil,
and free those who through fear of death
had been subject to slavery all their life.
Because of our Baptism, we are free from the fear of death, protected from the devil and the slavery of sin and death. By our Baptism we are free from the one who has the power of death, that is, the Devil. Those who entertain superstition are going back to darkness and fear. This is the work of the Devil. Don’t return to the slavery of fear and death. Remain in the light, because God commands,
I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD. YOU SHALL NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME.