Lent with Bossuet - Meditations on the Gospel (16)

The Unbeliever Walks in Darkness

“He that walketh in darkness, knoweth not whither he goeth” (Jn. 12:35). Strange state! We go because we must go, and our soul cannot exist without movement. So, we go, and we do not know where we are going. We believe we are going on to glory, to pleasures, to life, and to happiness. Instead, we go on to perdition and to death. We do not know where we are going. We have lost our way. As we go farther and farther away from the right road, we no longer see the least trace of it nor the least direction by which we might be brought back to it. This is a state too common in the life of men. Alas! Alas! This is all we can say about it. It is through cries, lamentations and tears, and not through words, that we must deplore this state.

“He knoweth not whither he goeth.” Blind man, where are you going? What miserable route are you treading? Alas! Alas! Return while you are still able to see the road.

He advances. Ah! what a labyrinth, and how many wrong and inevitable detours he will meet! He is lost. I see him no longer. He no longer knows himself, and does not know where he is. Yet he continues to walk, urged along by a sort of unfortunate fatalism, and driven by passions which he has rendered untamable.