jesusmaster

Jesus Master

Queen of Apostles

St. Paul

Jesus
Master
Healer

Jesus Master
Mentor and Model

Jesus
Master
the crucified
Guru

Christ,
Master
and
Lord

Jesus Master
as Light

Jesus Way
to
Happiness

Jesus is
Master
of Life

Jesus
Master
Divine
Child

Sr. Veritas Grau, FSP

(First of a series on Alberionian metaphors for Jesus Master)

Jesus Master is the Light of the world. His followers should be reflectors of this light.

The metaphor of light seems fundamental to Blessed James Alberione's concept of Jesus Master. It is linked with Jesus as Word: "May the light of the Gospel shine to the farthest bounds of the earth" (first part, Chaplet to the Queen of Apostles - prayer of Blessed James Alberione), but is also a characteristic of the Eucharistic presence. This conjunction of light and Eucharist harks back to the night between the centuries, when the seed of the Pauline charism burst out of darkness: :a great light shone from the Host." One of the seminal phrases found in the Pauline chapels is a reminder that Jesus has assured the Founder: "From here (from the Tabernacle) I want to cast light."

This connects with the Gospel phrase in which Jesus says, "I have come to cast light upon the earth and how anguished I am till it be kindled!" (Lk. 12:49). The light of Jesus, then, is not simply a cool neon illumination; it is a searing flame burning unquenchably like the holy light of the burning bush that transformed Moses into a prophet and apostle. "May the fire brought by you upon the earth inflame, enlighten, and warm everyone. (2nd part of the chaplet to the Sacred Heart - prayer of Fr. James Alberione).

Jesus Master is light not only in what he does, but in what he is. Alberione steeped his view of Christ in the sublime metaphor that opens John's Gospel. The prologue of John is one of the favorite Alberionian Gospel passages, put in the manual of prayers to be pondered on and assimilated. In John's vision, Jesus' life is the light of life,"and the life was the light of all men. The light shines in the darkness. And the darkness did not overcome it. It was the true light that enlightens every man which had come into the world..." (John 1:4, 5, 9). It is easy to see here that Jesus Master is the light of truth, the light of truth, the light that guides humanity's path through the darkness, the light of life.

The first part of the chaplet to the Divine Master (another Alberionian prayer), speaks of him as layered light: "the light of reason and the light of faith, and... the light of glory." The same theme, more expanded upon in its verbal and artistic expression, is found in Fr. Alberione's Via Humanitatis.

If Jesus Master, Way, Truth and Life is LIGHT ("I am the light of the world," Jn 8:12), then we his followers also should be light for the world, reflecting the glory of the Lord with the unveiled faces of a pure, transparent, love-rooted life, as Paul tells us. As Christians, we have a vocation not simply to witness to the true light, not simply to give that light, but to BE light. An extended metaphor that Alberione uses, drawn from the media world, is that Christ's apostles should be reflectors of divine light, magnifying glasses that can focus a ray of light intensely upon common wood or paper, to set it a flames with divine zeal.