There Is No Night

A Thought on Sunday

There Is No Night

from the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters CP

Sunday 4th May 2014

Jimmy McCarthy, composer of so many songs including ‘No Frontiers’ and ‘Wonder Child’, has written a new one which he calls ‘There is no night.” When asked by Sean O’Rourke last week how long it took to write it, he said he’s been writing it all his life. There’s been a lot of depression and darkness in his life but he’s come to see it’s all just a preparation for the dawning of day:

The more I know, the more I wonder
From the setting of the sun
To the dawning of the day
And the questions to be asked
Are beyond number.
Only this much for certain I can say
There is no night, but longing for the day.

In the song, he asks where is the warm place to keep him from the cold and where are his children to give him life when he is old? He’s been a dreamer and a wonderer by trade but has found little and learned so little. As a builder of bridges to the beyond, it’s the same story. He’s found little except this: “Only this much can I say for certain: “There is no night but longing for the day.”

But this is a very deep learning. Intended or not, this is Easter learning. This is an Easter song. And has echoes of what is happening in the lovely story in today’s gospel. The two disciples tramping home the whole seven miles to Emmaus were exhausted, depressed, in a very dark place. Probably not much chat. Probably they feel their hearts will never again be warmed by hope. “We had hoped he was the one that would save Israel.” But Jesus is dead. The dream is dead. Maybe it was foolish to hope?

When Jesus joined them on the road, he opened their minds and hearts to see and understand that it had to be this way; that there was meaning in all that had happened. It was necessary for Christ to suffer before entering into his glory. That’s what Moses and the prophets had been saying all along. As they listen, their hope begins to flicker into life again until they are able to say, “Were not our hearts burning within us as he explained the scriptures to us.”

And because their hearts are changed, everything is changed. They are filled with a whole new energy; it’s no problem at all to walk back the whole seven miles to Jerusalem. In fact, it’s the only thing to do! They almost have to! They have to share the good news! And imagine the joyful chat on that return journey!

All is changed because their hearts are changed. And their hearts are changed by the power of the word they have heard on the road. They had been nourished by the word of God. And nourished, too, by the body of Jesus broken for them and the blood of Jesus poured out for them in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist has the power to do the same for us!