It was 1974. I was 20 years old and thinking very seriously about becoming an Anglican Priest. In order to explore this possibility, I arranged through a Priest here to go to Cape Town to help out in a parish in District 6. This area became infamous for the forced removal of 120,000 families after the area was redesignated ‘white’ by the South African apartheid regime.

The policy of apartheid, with all the controlling pettiness that comes with oppressive regimes, was at its peak. The racial divisions imposed upon people were brutally enforced by a government convinced that the grand order they had created would last for a thousand years: a favourite phrase of many a delusional dictator.

Where you lived, where you worked, your job, whom you married, where your children would be educated, where you would eat, drink, shop; where you would sit on a bus, a train, in a park, and sadly in some churches: all of this was embedded in a multitude of laws and regulations.

I sent a letter to a friend of mine, which she showed me many years later. I wrote:

‘There is a blanket of darkness over this beautiful country. You can feel the evil in the air, hanging over every aspect of people’s lives. There is anger, desperation, and frustration everywhere. It will explode one day, and then there will be a bloodbath!’

Happily, I was wrong.

The darkness was pushed back, largely thanks to the leadership of Nelson Mandela and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The process of healing will take many generations and there will be relapses and regressions along the way, as there are at present, but South Africa is still a shining example of what can be achieved when people are enlightened and liberated by Christian values: dignity, freedom, justice, non-violence, and equality. These are lights that can never be extinguished from humanity because they form the hopes and desires of all of us, planted in our souls by God himself.

At the beginning of February, we celebrated Candlemas, the final feast of the Christmas season, which reminded us that Christ is the true light that gives light to everyone, ‘a light that shines in the darkness, and darkness could not overpower it’ (Gospel of John’s Prologue).

And as God’s Church, we are commissioned by our Lord Jesus Christ to reflect His Light into the darkest recesses of this world.

How do we do that?

We dedicate ourselves to welcoming the Lord into our lives, to working with him to create a world bathed in the light of justice, peace, and compassion.

We give ourselves to the Lord, not just small measures of who and what we are, but our whole being, in the sure and certain hope that God’s love is a pillar of fire that, always and everywhere, banishes the darkness of sin, evil, and death.

In this light, we have so much Good News to share with the world, much of which is still living in darkness.

Our mission is clear, and difficult, and sometimes seemingly impossible, but through prayer and charity we support this mission, and all our hope is in the Lord. May God’s kingdom come.