O Dawn

O Dawn, splendor of eternal light and sun of justice: come!  Give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death!
 
You, Dawn, spoke the word and there was light.  This light broke into formless void and primal darkness and made a separation.  Light is good.  You made us children of day, and the night is not our domain.  The darkness, then, must be bad, or at least less good.  And yet you left it there to occupy more or less one half of time.  You even sprinkled the night with lesser lights – the stars which gladly keep their watch.  It was all very good, in the beginning.
 
Watchman, how much longer the night?
 
You, Lord of light and of darkness, plunged the Egyptians into thick darkness, but gave the Israelites light.  Your plagues were always pedagogy, never merely punitive.  Darkness that can be felt forces the question: if the light in us has become darkness, how great is the darkness, but from where, from whom does light come?
 
Watchman, how much longer the night?
 
You, lamp in the dark, taught your poor ones to walk in darkness without any light, not to kindle their own firebrands, but to trust in the coming of dawn.  In the night, the heart’s yearning grows: yearning for the true light.
 
Morning has come, and again night.  If you will ask, ask; come back again.
 
You, Jesus, light coming into the world, were seen by a people in darkness.  Rejected by many, you were not overcome.  Whoever follows you does not walk in the dark, even when it is night.
 
More than watchman for daybreak…
 
You, Jesus, are the light of the world.  When you died, the sun failed and darkness covered the whole land until the ninth hour, as it was before the beginning.
 
More than watchman for daybreak…
 
You, Jesus, are the lamp that lights the eternal city, where there is no need of sun or moon, for the night is no more – it has served its purpose.
Lux perpetua luceat eis: let perpetual light shine upon them, for you are merciful.
 
Have mercy on us, and come.