Allegory of the Cave

ONE

2,400 years ago, the Greek Philosopher Plato wrote the Allegory of the Cave about a group of prisoners who are confined in a cave from birth with no knowledge of the outside world. They are chained facing a wall, unable to turn their heads, while a fire behind them gives off a faint light. Occasionally people pass by the fire carrying objects that cast shadows on the wall. The prisoners name these illusions, believing they are seeing real things and not mere shadows.

Suddenly, one prisoner breaks free and walks out into the light for the first time. The sunlight hurts his eyes, and he finds his new environment disorienting. When told the things around him are real and the shadows on the wall of the cave mere illusions he cannot believe it because, accustomed to the dark, the shadows appeared as reality to him.

But gradually, his eyesight adjusts until he can see clearly. Finally, he can look at the sun, whose light is the source of everything he has seen.

The freed man returns to the cave to share his discovery, but the other prisoners think his journey has made him stupid and blind and they violently resist his attempts to free them. They finally kill the one who has seen the light.

TWO

400 years after Plato wrote his allegory, God came to a cave which was used as a stable in Bethlehem. God came to a people who sat in bondage and darkness, people who could not distinguish between illusion and reality. God came to tell us there is more to life than what we can observe through science and more than the mind can know by reason alone.   

God came to the cave, and He revealed reality, He revealed what is true, and good, and beautiful. Everyone thought He was crazy or stupid, and they killed Him. But He rose from the Dead and sent His Spirit into the hearts of all who would believe. Then He sent those believers out into the world plunged into darkness to bring them the light.

THREE

From John:1 we read; “In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him. All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower. The Word was the true light that enlightens all men; and he was coming into the world. He was in the world that had its being through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own domain and His own people did not accept Him. But to all who did accept Him, He gave power to become children of God…The Word was made flesh, He lived among us, and we saw His glory, the glory that is His as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

FOUR

Jesus came to reveal there is more to life than what meets the eye.

Do we live by the shadows on the wall of the cave, by what we hear from the pundits and commentators of all sorts – all of whom are prisoners chained facing the wall? Or do we live by what Jesus revealed; that the meaning of life is to share in the very life of God; that the goal of life is intimacy with God; that sin, all sin, even small sin is self-destructive; that the will of God is the only way to true and lasting happiness. That we find His will by a total surrender to Jesus, by daily meditation on the Word of God and by serving others in charity. That Jesus established the Catholic Church as the means by which He would hand on the truth and grace to all people; that the Eucharist really is Him, the bread of life and the nourishment our soul desperately needs; that there is meaning and purpose in pain and suffering – that if accepted and united to the Cross of Christ, it is the most powerful force for good in the world; that Mary is our Mother and she will lead all people to Jesus. Finally – this is not our true home. Heaven is and God, our Father and He is preparing us moment by moment to live with Him forever.

FIVE

We are the prisoners chained in the cave who can’t tell reality from illusion.

The Light of the Gospel has come to us. How will we respond?

Will we believe, will we change our lives and begin to live according to the reality Christ reveals through His Church? Or do we prefer our darkness and illusions?

Will you break free and struggle toward the light even if it costs you things you have relied upon in the past? Things that never really made you happy anyway.

We have two options in life:

Remain in the cave and live by illusions.

Or accept the full revelation of Jesus handed down by the Catholic Church, come out of the darkness, live in the light and then become messengers to all those who still live in darkness through friendship, good conversation and the Rosary.