In order to see something, it has to be visible and we have to perceive it. Light is normally what is needed for sight. Sunlight naturally or artificially produced is what allows us to see concrete things in this world,   However, we also have the capacity to recognize both that we are seeing and what we are seeing. Fr. Richard Rohr tells us that light is not so much what you directly see, as that by which you see everything else.[i] To realize this directs us toward the question of the Source of light.

Sunlight (or starlight) is not the only source of light. There is an inner light that is present within us. The tradition of Western Philosophy has attributed this inner light to the mind, reason or the intellect. It is almost as if there is a meeting point that itself is invisible, but through which our ability to see and that which we are able to see come together. The source of light is both within and without so to speak.

You may ask why this would be important to realize. I believe it gives us the opportunity to look at the way that we typically engage in the world. We many times take for granted what we ‘see,’ without considering what makes our sight possible, i.e., where is its source. When we do this, we tend to narrow the field or perspective that we consider, i.e., all that falls within the horizon of our vision. The horizon itself becomes small and closed in.   This is isolation and this can also lead to ignorance. Without being mindful of where the ability to see ‘comes from’ short-circuits our vision, and in a sense hides the light that enables us to see at all.

“You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others…” (MT 5: 13-16)

Jesus is telling the disciples quite clearly where the source of light is in their lives. It’s not necessarily something that we take in from outside of ourselves. The Light is already there within THEM! I’m not sure that this gives us the pause that it should. All this time, the disciples have been ‘following’ Jesus, Himself the Light of Christ shining forth in the world. Now, Jesus is telling them that they are this Light! Perhaps if the disciples, and all Christians for that fact, would allow this to sink in, we might reconfigure this whole sense of following Jesus, being a disciple.

There is a tremendous sense of wonder and awe when we begin to realize, accept, and integrate this notion that we ARE the Light of the World. The light that allows us to see the way of Christ, is WITHIN US! And along with this sense of tremendous wonder comes the correlative responsibility that this type of seeing entails. If we fail or refuse to see and recognize the light that allows us to see, within ourselves and within others, then we hide the light from ourselves and others.

Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel seems to be asking “what is the point of having a lit lamp, if you’re just going to hide it?” When we hide the light, we isolate our vision. When we fail to acknowledge the divine source of light that is the Christ in ALL of us, we can only see bits and pieces of life and reality, and these small elements are for the most part only framed illusions within our own individual concerns and interests. We only see things, individuals, and isolations. And this gives us anxiety, fear and reactive posturing.

If we can be transformed by, as I said above, this WHOLE sense of following Christ, we are then able to see with a light that shines forth at the same time. We see as God sees from within and without. The divine spark of God (Christ) within each of us shines forth, giving light ‘to all in the house!’ The beautiful paradox of this light which allows us to see is that it shines in all directions! The very light of Christ shining within us, lights up the Whole world, because everyone else is seen as shining through with Christ. The Whole World is shining forth by being lovingly captured in the Divine Lamp of our own lives.

The French mystic and scientist, Teilhard de Chardin, speaks about this Wholeness in terms of humanity, when he claims that by virtue of being in the world, we possess a special sense of the Whole of which we form a part.[ii] This sense is that seeing or grasping of reality shining in our vision, meeting the same light shining forth in everyone else and everything else. We are all parts of the whole and we reflect that wholeness to the extent that we set our light on a lampstand, or even a mountaintop, for others to see, and also see and shine in the light shining forth from others as well! This is Whole participation. It’s a dynamic spectrum of convergence, or coming together, which paradoxically makes us uniquely WHO we are. We sometimes call this the Body of Christ.

Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel seems to be talking about this Light of Christ, which cannot be captured or isolated or individualized – unless of course we hide it! It covers all, shines forth from all, and is ALL.   To ‘realize’ that this Divine Light shines forth is to actually see with or from this same Light! Paradoxically, when we are able to do this, this coming or drawing together of the Divine Light in each of us, personalizes us in a way that stultifies any individualistic notion we have of our isolated selves. We see the Whole from a personalized – not individualized – viewpoint, and in doing so we reflect out the same, lighting up the whole House of the Universe! Here to be personal is to be whole, to participate uniquely as an engaged aspect of the whole.

As Teilhard says, “Everything holds together…we used to look upon ourselves and the things around us as points closed in on themselves. We now see beings as like threadless fibres woven into a universal process.”[iii] This Whole Light shines with both wonder and responsibility. God is not out there waiting for us to see Him or Her. The Divine Light is shining forth in all of the universe, waiting to be reflected out to each other and at the same time refracted in our own personalities.

The Wholeness of Light saves. This is where the responsibility comes in for us. To the extent that we stifle or share the light within ourselves, within others, within all the world, is the extent to which we participate in the Divine Process, the Living Body of Christ. Isn’t this another way of looking at salvation – engaging and integrating Wholeness?

When we give light to ALL in the House, everything and everyone shines. It takes work, but the benefits are Reality healing itself. As the great Cistercian mystic, Thomas Merton, tells us, this capacity to see the way Christ sees is nothing but absolute inclusion ready for engagement right now in every moment of our lives.

“It is in everybody, and if we could see it, we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.” [iv]

[i] Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (Convergent: 2019), pp. 14, 32.

[ii] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “How I Believe” in Christianity and Evolution (Harcourt: 1969), p. 102.

[iii] Ibid., p. 100, 104.

[iv] “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander” in A Thomas Merton Reader, edited by Thomas P. McDonnell (Image: 1974), p. 347