The columnist and news commentator David Brooks recently wrote a book entitled “How To Know a Person.” In it he talks about what’s involved in encountering not just the outward appearance of somebody, but more importantly his or her inner life, not just the surface but the interior, not just the words but the heart from which those words come.
He speaks of two different styles by which one person can approach another.
The first he calls the “Diminisher.” This is someone who when she meets you has most of her attention on herself. The result is not really personal encounter, but rather self-reference, focusing not much on the people I’m meeting but more on their reactions to me.
Contrasted to that is what he calls “the Illuminator,” someone interested in another person’s perspective and inner life. The Illuminator is someone who, through their interest in you, highlights your inner experiences and illuminates your person.
The Diminisher shuts out the inside core of the other. The Illuminator lights up those insides and invites them to surface more easily.
Something of this comes through in this gospel incident we call the Transfiguration. It’s an occasion when the fuller reality of Jesus begins to shine forth, his outer figure falling away and his divine nature rising to the surface. It’s the illumination of his innermost self – dazzling white clothing, intimacy with Moses and Elijah, his true glory revealed.
Now while the transfiguration, Jesus’ fuller disclosure, doesn’t happen now in the same way it did for Peter, John and James, there’s still something to be learned. How is it that you and I can be better illuminators of Jesus’ person? In what ways can we allow the fuller depth of Jesus’ self to come through, to show itself more clearly and vividly? How is it I can come to encounter not just Jesus’ outward appearance, but his inner person, i.e., his bond to his Father, and his nearness to us in his Holy Spirit?
How willing I am to allow him to show more and more of himself to me? What do I do to let more of my light shine into his deeper self?
And so the question: how available am I to him, not just in prayer but also in everyday life. That is to say, in openness to the neighbor, to the suffering in the world around us, and to those others who have also opened themselves to him.
Transfiguration set in this key becomes ever more available – allowing the Lord Jesus’ comforting presence and glorious inner Self to draw closer, allowing the voice of his Father to more clearly sound through as it proclaims, “This is my chosen son, listen to him.”
In a counsel to open ourselves further to God’s presence, Vincent advises:
If you place yourselves often in the Presence of God, His goodness will not fail to advise you on all that He asks of you.
(Volume: | Page#: 219) added on 6/2/
Thanks for this, Tom, it got me thinking that if we were more filled with Jesus’ spirit–and Vincent’s–we might be better illuminators to others of the values our society and the world need at this moment so fraught with fear and uncertainty about so many troubling things. Sometimes sowing seeds like that is all we can do but at least that can start something new and positive.