Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today is the commemoration of the Samaritan Woman in our calendar.

This woman, who Jesus met by Jacob’s Well, is also known variously as Photini, Svetlana, or Claire. All of these names suggest that the woman became ‘enlightened’ as the result of meeting Jesus.

This word ‘enlightenment’ has come to mean something very specific in our modern context. We usually use the word in the context of people when they are ‘rational’, ‘well-informed’, ‘logical’, and so forth. To say that you are ‘enlightened’ means that you have had the thing explained, and you have understood it.

But such grammatical usage stems from our intellectual and cultural heritage in the 18th century, which came to equate enlightenment with a kind of rationalism and empiricism. To this way of thinking, nothing is real without it being comprehended by the rational faculty, and without being apprehended by the senses in a rigorous, scientific process.

The notion that St. Claire, as we might call her, was ‘enlightened’ by meeting Jesus, is something quite distinct from that understanding. It means that she participated in the light of God, the light of Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor, the light that Moses saw when he met with God on Mt. Sinai. To say she was enlightened, means that her life radically changed after meeting Jesus. Indeed, tradition says that Claire eventually spread the Gospel to Carthage, and was eventually martyred in Rome with her sisters and sons. Nero reportedly executed her by throwing her down a well!

St. Clair received a light that was unlike the physical or rational light we think of. Jesus made it possible for her to see what life could be, to see what she truly desired. Her experience illustrates the prayer book language: ’In Your light shall we see light’.

Being enlightened must therefore refer to being enfolded by God’s mercy, grace, energies — and being drawn to One that loves and desires us. There isn’t anything purely ‘rational’ about this, but it is pure Reality at the same time.

Yours in Christ,
Justin