A bright light is one of the most common manifestations of a Heavenly vision, but is not in itself a guarantee for divine origin. The revelation still needs to be verified, according to the experts. And then you put it aside.

This entry is really written for Christians. If you are curious you can read it anyway, but I don’t expect it to be useful to others.

Still reading the book Fire Within about St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross. I haven’t really studied great saints in much detail before, so perhaps they are pretty normal for their sort, but Teresa in particular really blows me away with her awesomeness. (As usual, when it comes to Teresa. I feel like a complete fanboy when I think of her. She is so awesome!) It turns out that for her, it was quite natural to hear the voice of her Lord or to see the risen Christ in a vision – not a vague daydream, but an unimaginable beauty in a blinding light beyond anything she had thought possible. She also had various other direct perceptions of Jesus and God.

Now, this surprised me, but that was not the awesome part. The awesome part is how she didn’t make a fuss about it.

St Teresa and St John insisted that no matter how absolutely certain it was that a vision or voice was of God, there was no reason to talk about it to anyone except ones spiritual director (the person a Catholic goes to for confession, normally a priest). After that, just set it aside. These things happen, and their purpose is our sanctification. That is to say, they should result in us becoming more humble, more loving, more patient and so on, if they really are from God. These perceptions of Heaven – and even of the Trinity, it was implied – was not a proof that one was extremely holy. Sure, genuine communications did not appear until a certain point, usually, but not very far into the purification process. After that, even a genuine vision of the risen Christ was not really saying anything about one’s progress. And many people live and die without any such event, and are the better for it.

That is a pretty cool attitude toward something that would send most of us screaming or make us full-time preachers or selling books on Amazon about our Conversations With God.

I imagine that if I had a grand vision of the Lord when I was even remotely young, I would have been all over the place thinking I was a Chosen Vessel of Salvation, a Very Important Person in the cosmic hierarchy. Everyone show respect for the Great Man of God!

(Of course, that is how I imagine it. In reality, any genuine meeting with God will automatically reveal one’s sins, faults, weaknesses and imperfections. So one will immediately become very humble – although I am not sure how long that lasts. I think that depends on one’s attitude.)

The reason why St Teresa eventually mentioned these events to a broader audience (originally the nuns under her care) was that she had been ordered by her superiors (in the church hierarchy, not necessarily in the spirit). Being a very obedient old woman, she wrote her rambling, charming books that changed the history of the Church forever.

The Catholic Church is still fairly monolithic, but the Protestant churches have split into probably more than a thousand sects, not to mention splinter cells within the various denominations again. And frequently this is because someone has had some sort of vision, voice, or inspiration that they felt certain was from God. And perhaps it was. Why not? God does things like that, evidently. But as the book about the two saints points out, one thing is what God says and another is what we make of it. The Bible is supposed to be the Word of God as well, and people interpret it in wildly different ways. Why wouldn’t they do the same with a voice or a vision or a revelation?

And this also came to pass. They say that here on the south coast of Norway, every village used to have a prayer house or two, beside the church. That is because each village had some kind of sect which had some revelation that the church did not have, like a different variant of some ritual or dogma. And then someone in the sect would get their own revelation, and break out and make a new sect. They would make their own prayer house and try to poach followers from the church and the other sects; and if they failed to convert them, threaten them with eternal damnation.

I guess when God tells you something, it is hard to stay cool and wait and see. But if great saints like Teresa and John could do so, certainly some random guy should.  (And before you ask, no I have not have any visions of the Lord in a bright light. Yet. Hopefully if it ever happens, I’ll now be able to not go off the deep end – which everyone would believe anyway…)

Jesus Christ has a saying that applies to this, I believe: “A teacher who is educated for the Kingdom of Heaven is like someone who brings out treasures old and new from his storage.” If you have learned something from God or from High Spirits in Heaven, and you know it comes from there because you have become a more virtuous and humble person yourself from it, then obviously you have something in your storehouse for the day someone needs your treasure.

Speaking of which, Amazon has moved The Way of Perfection (by St Teresa) up to second place in my Kindle recommendations list recently. I found this amusing because of the name. When I was young, I thought that I was pretty close to being perfect. But since then I have learned that I was actually very far from it, and still am far from it. God told me so!

I agree with marine officer Johan Oscar Smith, who wrote to his brother that  when he got the Holy Spirit, he expected to learn the hidden truth about the beasts in Daniel and the Apocalypse. But instead God showed him the beast in himself. Now that’s a truly useful vision! However, bear in mind that even God’s reproach is filled with hope. It has nothing to do with depression, and it won’t tell you that you are beyond salvation. Those who are can’t hear Him anyway. For it is written: “Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts”.