In New Orleans last week, I visited my favorite po-boy place, a combination filling-station/take-out joint. Everything there is made from scratch, so while waiting for my shrimp po-boy, I watched and listened, enjoying the atmosphere.
The woman behind the counter sighed as she worked, “Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!”
From behind the cash register at the other side of the room came, “Have mercy!”
Yes, I thought, Lord, have mercy. This August we are commemorating the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The date of the bombing was August 6, the same day as the Feast of the Transfiguration: a holy light and an evil light remembered on the same day.
We read that the face of Jesus “shone like the sun,” after which “a bright cloud overshadowed them” (Matthew 17:2, 5). The bomb, too, provided light and cloud. A survivor of the Hiroshima blast, Dr. Michihiko Hachiya, wrote,
Suddenly, a strong flash of light startled me – and then another. So well does one recall little things that I remember vividly how a stone lantern in the garden became brilliantly lit and I debated whether this light was caused by a magnesium flare or sparks from a passing trolley.
["Surviving the Atomic Attack on Hiroshima, 1945," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2001).]
We all know about the huge mushroom cloud that followed, and the death, and the anxiety of the atomic age which had just begun.
An evil light and a holy light. The apostles were witnesses to the glory of Christ, an experience which made such an impression on them and on the early church that the event is recounted in all three synoptic gospels, as well as in the second letter of Peter. Dr. Hachiya, on the other hand, was witness to a light that represented the darkness that has plagued the spirit of humankind from the beginning of recorded history.
Pray without ceasing, Saint Paul tells us. When we look back, look around, and look inside ourselves, there is no doubt that we are in constant need of mercy. Working, playing, resting; cooking or eating a shrimp po-boy; here and everywhere, we can pray, “Lord, have mercy!” May our light always be the light of Christ, peaceful, compassionate, and glorious.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)