It Is Morning

In the village street, a facade offers itself to the afternoon sun. Everything comes down to its shutters.

Half-open, they bring a breath of tenderness to the heart: behind the wood, in the softened light and preserved freshness, one can sense that life is pulsing. But closed upon a dwelling known to be empty, these same shutters only reflect a sad image of desolation.

A house can be splendid, comfortable, equipped with every refinement: that matters little. A house is Someone, or it is nothing.

And for it to remain inhabited, someone must accept, every morning, to open its shutters and let the daylight in.

This presence is sometimes nestled in the simplicity of a gesture that awakens the light. This morning, this role fell to little Jean, three years old. For him, there were no heavy wooden shutters to push back, but a gesture of his time: a finger placed on a wi-fi control. A tiny, yet sovereign gesture.

A click, and the roller shutter of the bay window slowly rises. As it goes up, a thin ribbon of brightness appears at the bottom of the glass and stretches across the wooden floor. Then Jean lies down on the ground, his cheek pressed against the wood, his eye right next to this luminous line, so as not to miss anything of the light that advances, overflows, and gradually wins over the entire room. It chases away the shadow and the coldness that could have made one believe the house was empty.

Seeing it flood everything, his face illuminated, Jean cried out in a burst of pure joy: “It is morning!”

From the height of his three years, Jean does not just note that it is daylight: he opens up to it fully. Better still: he puts himself at its level, bending down to the ground to welcome it as closely as possible. Through his gesture and this lowering, he gives the house back its soul and its truth. He refuses the desolation of closed shutters.

Is this not the secret of our spiritual life? When Jesus speaks of the “Father’s House,” he is not describing a distant dwelling to us: he is speaking of Someone, of a Welcome, of a shared Life that refuses to remain closed. This House is the place where Life awaits our consent. Sometimes, we remain in the shadow of our habits, forgetting that the gesture of hope is within reach.

A burst of trust is enough — and sometimes a humble lowering — to let the divine Light invade our interior space. Then, the heart, finally inhabited, can cry out in its turn: “It is morning!”