In the third of her reflections for Lent, Joan Chittister suggests that we have a ‘spiritual reflex’ in us that recoils from corruption and injustice Sometimes, it is only in darkness that we can really see clearly. I look up at the sky on an Irish mountainside and the night is alive with light – piercing, gleaming light. If I looked at the same sky from the middle of Dublin or London or New York, the false light around me would grey the sky to the point where the stars are not even visible. It’s a principle of life, this notion that the blackness of the night gives a particular power to the smallest of stars thousands of light years away. It’s also a principle of life that the effect is as riveting of the soul as it is of the eyes. When life gets dark, it g