And with eyes wide open to the divinizing light, and with astonished ears, let us hear God’s voice crying out to us every day and admonishing us. (RB Prologue)
The voice of God speaks to us every day, if we have ears to listen. What we hear, if we hear anything, can be a source of challenge to our innate tendency to embrace an easygoing lifestyle. But challenge is not always the way that God deals with us. More often, God draws us to transcend our limits by giving us a taste of what lies beyond the world of sense, stirring up in our hearts a mysterious experience of delight that causes us to drop what we are doing and to look more closely. It is a little like Moses being attracted to the burning bush. We experience something that draws us deeper into its mystery. In fact, this is what the word “mystery” originally meant—something so fascinating that we are drawn to penetrate ever more intensely into its reality.
We are awakened and our eyes are opened by what Saint Benedict calls “the divinizing light.” The adjective “divinizing” or “deifying” is often translated today simply as “divine” on the grounds that by the sixth century the original meaning had faded somewhat and the term was used more loosely. This may be so, but the fact remains that the word describes not an aspect of the light in itself but its impact on those who are touched by it. The light shines not for itself alone but to enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. When we rise from our sleep and open our eyes we are touched by the light; we are enlightened and energized. We live. This is the “light of life” about which Saint Benedict will speak in a few verses—the light that enlivens.
At the heart of this image is an anthropological statement. If the light from God is for us the source of life in its fullness, then the more light we receive the more fully alive we are. We were created to enjoy union with God, and our lives will be incomplete if this possibility is excluded. A state of spiritual alertness is the means of enlightenment and enlivenment. By being awake we become more fully alive, more fully human, more fully divine.
Michael Casey, OSCO
The Road to Eternal Life
