“I will dwell in your heart and this light will blind the darkness” (Inner Word).
Our Father makes us this wonderful offer to dwell in our hearts. When His love dwells in us permanently, the darkness that often besets us will be dazzled. We can easily understand this when we think of the Virgin Mary. Her heart was so overflowing with God’s love that the devil did not dare to confront her.
If our hearts are filled with the love of the Lord, darkness will not be able to penetrate, let alone spread. On the contrary, it will have to give way, because the powers of darkness – once wonderful beings of light – have been perverted by their rebellion against God and are filled with hatred and envy. Even on the human level, we know that when a person is dominated by hatred and envy, his being is darkened.
The light of the Father in a person’s heart – that is, His divine love – is unbearable and incomprehensible to darkness. Since they see everything from the point of view of their own perversion and try to draw people into their way of thinking and acting – which they cannot do with a person full of God’s love – meeting such a person is for them like “having coals of fire poured on their head” (Rm 12:20).
It is up to us to nourish this flame of God’s love in us through prayer, Holy Mass, the interiorisation of the Word of God, fidelity to the truth of the authentic doctrine of the Church and the practice of works of charity.
If this happens, today’s opening words can become more and more real in us, and thus we can cooperate with the Spirit of God in weakening the power of darkness.