From Spark to Paschal Flame

An Easter Vigil Reflection

Tonight, we begin in darkness.

The Church is silent.

The tomb is sealed.

Hope seems suspended between memory and promise.

And yet—

A single flame is struck against the night.

“May the light of Christ, rising in glory,

dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.”

When I was a child,

I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child (1 Corinthians 13:11).

Time moved gently.

The world was warm with long days and sheltering love.

There was light then—

Uncomplicated.

Unquestioned.

A spark quietly alive within me.

But as I grew,

I turned outward.

I sought likeness in others.

Approval. Identity. Belonging.

For “all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father” (1 John 2:16).

I did not yet know this.

I chased lesser lights.

I mistook brightness for truth.

In youth, I immersed myself in the currents of the age.

I tasted love and loss.

I knew betrayal.

I built an ivory tower of ideas—isms and arguments stacked high,

Yet none could quiet the restless ache within.

Like Ecclesiastes, I discovered

“Vanity of vanities… all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

What I sought outwardly

Could not answer what was inward.

And so came my Good Fridays—

Years of falling.

Years of silence.

Years where the spark seemed extinguished.

But the Light was never gone.

It was covered.

Layer upon layer

By illusion and false belief,

By the passing structures of a material world (1 Corinthians 7:31).

From the beginning,

The breath was there.

“The LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground,

and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7).

The spark was His.

I had sought false gods—

Success. Recognition. Intellect.

But none were the living God.

Only One could say,

“I am the light of the world;

whoever follows me will not walk in darkness” (John 8:12).

Holy Week reveals the mystery:

The spark becomes flame through surrender.

Through betrayal.

Through suffering.

Through the Cross.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,

it remains alone” (John 12:24).

The tomb is not the end.

It is the womb of resurrection.

Tonight, in the Vigil fire,

Darkness does not vanish at once.

It is pierced.

The Paschal candle stands—

Wounded wax, burning wick—

Light born through sacrifice.

So too within me.

The child’s spark

Becomes Paschal flame.

Not self-made.

Not self-sustained.

But Christ alive within me (Galatians 2:20).

The “better self” I tried to construct

Is not achieved through striving,

But revealed through surrender.

The dwelling of God is not an ivory tower,

But a humble heart.

“The kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21).

And this flame is not given to be hidden.

“What you have received as light, let it shine” (cf. Matthew 5:16).

Tonight, I remember:

The spark was never lost.

It awaited resurrection.

Christ is risen.

And in His rising,

The flame within me burns anew.

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