Seeing the World in a Ray of Light 

Once we recognize we are part of the whole—how do we change our own actions? Learn how each prayer calls us into deeper purpose in this beautiful contemporary reflection on the wisdom of Saint Benedict from Katie Gordon of Monasteries of the Heart.  

One summer evening, I stood with a friend outside a hermitage in the woods, and we marveled at the glow of wet, green life after a rainstorm passed. As we looked at the spiraling stem, covered in raindrops refracting light and mirroring the trees, my friend paraphrased Benedict of Nursia: “The universe in a ray of light! What a miracle.” We stood in reverent witness, connected across time to our monastery’s namesake, and connected across space to all that was reflected in that single raindrop.  

In that moment, she was paraphrasing a story about Saint Benedict’s life, where one night he “saw the whole world as in a single ray of light.” Benedictines take this story as not just a story of seeing but an invitation into a new way of being. Joan Chittister, OSB writes in The Radical Christian Life: A Year with Saint Benedict that this moment of cosmic consciousness instructs us with three insights: “The spiritual life enlarges a person’s vision. When we begin to see as God sees, we see far beyond ourselves. Contemplation is a very human thing; all of us are called to be contemplatives.”    

There needs to be priming for this, though; contemplative seeing does not happen without practice. In the monastic community I live in with the Erie Benedictines, a rhythm of prayer in the liturgy of the hours expands our consciousness each day. Whether it is through psalms or silence, gospel stories or petitionary prayers, we are called regularly into a wider and farther seeing––beyond our own desires, and into the needs of the world. Like Benedict who came before us, who saw the world in a ray of light, each prayer also calls us to a broader purpose: to evolve our consciousness of the sacred so that we may, too, become a channel of its flourishing. 

In practices from monastic liturgy to centering prayer, patterns of seeing and being are set into motion. After we struggle to befriend reality day after day through our sits and our prayers, we build better muscles to recognize and embrace it next time. After all, this contemplative way of seeing is just the starting point. What matters is how we act on that seeing, and we must see clearly to act boldly.  

Inspired by an experience like seeing the world in a ray of light, there might be a tendency to allow this interconnectedness to simply let us feel good about ourselves and our spiritual experiences. But the marrow of the spiritual life is about who we become with that sense of interconnectedness. When we experience unitive moments like Benedict’s ray of light, it must invite us into a way of being in oneness. 

If we are lucky enough–or practiced enough–to reach this mystical knowing of our oneness, may we allow it to lead us not to an erasure of difference but rather an expansion of identity. May the oneness we witness provoke us into an engaged unity we enact.  

Contemplative seeing doesn’t conclude at the realization we are one. Contemplative seeing invites us to reckon with the question: what does this oneness ask of me?   

Reflect with Us 
What does oneness ask of you? Share your reflection with us.  

Katie Gordon is the Coordinator of Monasteries of the Heart, an online movement that translates monastic wisdom for contemporary seekers. She also writes Following the Monastic Impulse which offers stories, models, and insights from her contemplative path. 

We Conspire is a series from the Center for Action and Contemplation featuring wisdom and stories from the growing Christian contemplative movement. Sign up for the monthly email series and receive a free invitation to practice each month.