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Saint Columba - Eleanor C Merry - The light of initiation
Identifier
013953
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Eleanor C Merry – The Flaming Door
On one night one of the monks crept into the chapel to pray, while Columba was engaged in his devotions in the oratory adjoining, the door between having been left a little ajar:
"But the brightness of that same celestial light bursting through the inner door of that chamber, filled the interior of that other little house where Virgno was doing his best to hide himself, and not without a certain degree of intense fear. And as no one can gaze with direct and undazzled eyes upon the summer and noonday sun, so also Virgno who saw it, could by no means bear that celestial brightness because that incomparable flood of light much dazzled the sight of his eyes. He was so greatly frightened at the sight of this terrible and lightning-like splendour, that no strength remained in him."...
The literature of the day abounds in such descriptions of how the ‘light of initiation’ shone from such persons.