Windows & Light in Monastic Spirituality
Christ the Light [1]
I am the Light of the World (Jn 8.12). This quotation from the Gospel of John is the most articulate of the many biblical references to light and divine illuminations as a manifestation of divinity and of Christ in particular.
The Western doctor of the Church, St. Augustine makes it very clear that this statement, made by Christ, is not to be taken simply as a metaphor. It is to be understood in a literal sense. When we call Christ the light, it is not in the same sense as when we call him the cornerstone; in the former case it is in the literal sense, in the latter, figurative. (Neque enim et Christus sic dicitur lux, quomodo dicitur lapis; sed illud proprie, hoc utique figurate.)
This light, taken literally, is not to be understood as ordinary daylight that illumines the world, but a non-created light that existed before the Creation. Early patristic theologians, in particular the Greek Fathers, and notably Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas, give us a profound development of light taken literally in their theological development of Uncreated Light.
One way in which church architecture sought to represent in symbols this theology of Uncreated Divine Light was the use of windows. Light shining through thinly cut marble or alabaster of any shaped window gave a whiteness or a splendid quality to light, suggestive of the theophany of Uncreated Divine Light. In particular, it was the round circular windows that were viewed as symbols for the divine light of Christ’s Transfiguration, or for the Transfiguration’s divine cloud that was luminous.
Furthermore, these windows were set in church walls decorated with paintings, engraving, or symbols of Christ and his evangelical teaching. These decorations themselves simply were to focus and point to the light coming through the window. This combination of a plain window set in the midst of a New Testament theme was seen to make a distinction between the shining light itself and the Christology that makes this light known and available to us.
Cistercian Windows [2]
The windows in cistercian churches, chapter houses, and/or refectories are symbols of Uncreated Divine Light that Christ manifests to us.
St. Bernard, in his Parable #6, gives an explicit explanation for the cistercian use of windows in general and of five lancet windows in particular.
These five themes on which we reflect in contemplation are viewed through five windows. A window is a space in a wall. If the wall is unbroken, there is no window. If there is only a space without a wall, there is no window. A wall which contains a space is called a window.
Christ’s humanity was like a wall which yet allowed his divinity to shine forth within that humanity. Therefore, Christ, is a window. Indeed five windows may be pondered in him: his incarnation, his way of life, his teaching, his resurrection and his ascension. It is through these five realities that the things spoken of regarding contemplation are seen.
This text also suggests that cistercian window arrangement itself replaces the use of New Testament themes in paintings or engraving on walls to accent the divine light coming through the window. Painted Biblical themes and representations of symbols focusing on light coming through the windows do not play a role in Cistercian architecture and monastic prayer. Removal of these painted or engraved images is in accord the norms of Cistercian simplicity.
There is another reason for this removal of images. Because the writings of Cassian were part of the cistercian formation, his teaching on images in prayer, Conferences 9 and 10, was also a source for this radical architectural simplicity. In this architecture, as Bernard pointed out, it is the window arrangement in a plain wall with white shining light that accents Christ’s manifestation to us of Uncreated Divine Light.
The preference is obvious in early cistercian buildings for round windows, oculus, and for triplet window arrangements: two lancets and an oculus, three equal lancets below an oculus, two matching lancets grouped with a third of a different size, and so on.
Two lancets suggests Christ’s divinity and humanity
Four lancets suggests Bernard’s four ways of comprehending God: length, breadth, height, depth.
Five lancets suggests: Incarnation, way of life, teaching, resurrection and ascension of Christ.
The oculus is simply divine light itself - God.
White glass was used in these windows. White glass without crosses or pictures is a norm coming from the General Chapters between 1149-1150, before the death of Bernard. Although later, this glass will be arranged in geometric designs.
White glass gives a whiteness or a splendid quality to light, a fitting symbol of divinity. For color is considered as irrelevant; it is seen as a distraction and suggests gradations in created things of the world. White is the sum of all colors of light, that is, of all creation in God.
White glass, serves to emphasize that Bernard’s common imagery is of a divine light which is not painful and dazzling but one that, in monastic contemplation, the human person is able to bear.
White glass supports a simplicity of life that is part of a pursuit of self-knowledge which marks monastic contemplation. To begin to know and see one’s self is to begin to know and see God. The opposite of self-knowledge (notitia sui) is curiosity (curiositas,) a distraction towards things with its negligent vision that tarnishes purity and simplicity of life so essential to knowing and seeing the transfigured and resplendent Christ. (RB 49) We can associate color with curiosity since color is proper to created things in contrast to white glass suggesting simplicity, focus of vision, transcending beyond all limits into the divine.
The Transfiguration: Christ in human form / Christ in divine form [3]
Pure prayer and the Transfiguration are intimately related for Cassian. He believed that the goal of a monk’s prayer was to see the glory of God shining through the transfigured Christ. Toward the end of his life, Cassian wrote: I see the ineffable illumination, I see the unexplained brillance, I see the splendor unbearable for human weakness and beyond what mortal eyes can bear, the majesty of God shining in unimaginable light. (De Inc 3.6.3) In Conference 10, Cassian had already located this brilliance in the Transfigured Christ.
In this conference we see a type of prayer that does focus on the human form of Christ in his public ministry and earthly ministry. This form of prayer can help our daily actual conversion from sin to virtue. There is another type of prayer, the pure prayer, purity of heart, that leads a monk into the mountain of solitude and into the presence of the Transfigured Christ. Monks are able to come to a richer understanding of Christ and his revelation of the Father to the degree that they are able to quiet their inner turmoil arising from their passions, desires, and thought process.
Thus, the mystery of the Transfiguration is a call to this process of pure prayer. To know the glorified and transfigured Christ, is to know God. This glorious Christ is not a “floodlit human Jesus” but a Jesus who, in his life, moved beyond all limits, beyond the self...even limits of a passion and death on a cross. In other words, to the degree that we in our life strive to move beyond limits by a healthy ascesis and self purification, we will come to a richer insight into Christ’s making known to us the Father.
Conclusion
Without any wall decoration depicting biblical themes but simply using a combination of window arrangement to focus on Christ, and white glass to express uncreated light, cistercians allude to the teaching of Cassian on pure prayer as the path to knowing the glorious Christ, the Christ of light, a vision of peace.
The very last written word we have of Bernard, given perhaps hours before his death reads:
Now as regards the night of ignorance, what could be clearer than what is said in another psalm: “They have not known, they have not understood, they walk in darkness.” (Ps 81.5) Does this not express perfectly the ignorance in which the whole human race was born? This is the ignorance, I think, which the blessed Apostle admits he was born in, and gives thanks that he was rescued from, when he says, “He has snatched us from the power of darkness.” (Col 1.13) Again, he says to all the elect, “We are not children of the night or of darkness; (1 Th 5.5) “Walk as children of light” (Eph 5.8) ( SC 86. 4)
ENDNOTES
1
Thoughts in this section come from Patrik Reutersward’s article, Windows of Divine Light, in his book, Forgotten Symbols of God, Stockholm Studies in History of Art 35, Uppsala 1986.
2
Thoughts in this section come direcly from Meredith Parsons Lillich’s article, Recent Scholarship Concerning Cistercian Windows, CS 141, Kalamazoo 1993, pp. 233-262.
3
Thoughts in this section come from Columba Stewart’s book, Cassian the Monk, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 95 ff. I wonder what influence Cassian’s teaching on the fleshy Jesus and the transfigured Jesus had for Bernard’s teaching about Christ-Flesh, Christ-Spirit.
I am the Light of the World (Jn 8.12). This quotation from the Gospel of John is the most articulate of the many biblical references to light and divine illuminations as a manifestation of divinity and of Christ in particular.
The Western doctor of the Church, St. Augustine makes it very clear that this statement, made by Christ, is not to be taken simply as a metaphor. It is to be understood in a literal sense. When we call Christ the light, it is not in the same sense as when we call him the cornerstone; in the former case it is in the literal sense, in the latter, figurative. (Neque enim et Christus sic dicitur lux, quomodo dicitur lapis; sed illud proprie, hoc utique figurate.)
This light, taken literally, is not to be understood as ordinary daylight that illumines the world, but a non-created light that existed before the Creation. Early patristic theologians, in particular the Greek Fathers, and notably Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas, give us a profound development of light taken literally in their theological development of Uncreated Light.
One way in which church architecture sought to represent in symbols this theology of Uncreated Divine Light was the use of windows. Light shining through thinly cut marble or alabaster of any shaped window gave a whiteness or a splendid quality to light, suggestive of the theophany of Uncreated Divine Light. In particular, it was the round circular windows that were viewed as symbols for the divine light of Christ’s Transfiguration, or for the Transfiguration’s divine cloud that was luminous.
Furthermore, these windows were set in church walls decorated with paintings, engraving, or symbols of Christ and his evangelical teaching. These decorations themselves simply were to focus and point to the light coming through the window. This combination of a plain window set in the midst of a New Testament theme was seen to make a distinction between the shining light itself and the Christology that makes this light known and available to us.
Cistercian Windows [2]
The windows in cistercian churches, chapter houses, and/or refectories are symbols of Uncreated Divine Light that Christ manifests to us.
St. Bernard, in his Parable #6, gives an explicit explanation for the cistercian use of windows in general and of five lancet windows in particular.
These five themes on which we reflect in contemplation are viewed through five windows. A window is a space in a wall. If the wall is unbroken, there is no window. If there is only a space without a wall, there is no window. A wall which contains a space is called a window.
Christ’s humanity was like a wall which yet allowed his divinity to shine forth within that humanity. Therefore, Christ, is a window. Indeed five windows may be pondered in him: his incarnation, his way of life, his teaching, his resurrection and his ascension. It is through these five realities that the things spoken of regarding contemplation are seen.
This text also suggests that cistercian window arrangement itself replaces the use of New Testament themes in paintings or engraving on walls to accent the divine light coming through the window. Painted Biblical themes and representations of symbols focusing on light coming through the windows do not play a role in Cistercian architecture and monastic prayer. Removal of these painted or engraved images is in accord the norms of Cistercian simplicity.
There is another reason for this removal of images. Because the writings of Cassian were part of the cistercian formation, his teaching on images in prayer, Conferences 9 and 10, was also a source for this radical architectural simplicity. In this architecture, as Bernard pointed out, it is the window arrangement in a plain wall with white shining light that accents Christ’s manifestation to us of Uncreated Divine Light.
The preference is obvious in early cistercian buildings for round windows, oculus, and for triplet window arrangements: two lancets and an oculus, three equal lancets below an oculus, two matching lancets grouped with a third of a different size, and so on.
Two lancets suggests Christ’s divinity and humanity
Four lancets suggests Bernard’s four ways of comprehending God: length, breadth, height, depth.
Five lancets suggests: Incarnation, way of life, teaching, resurrection and ascension of Christ.
The oculus is simply divine light itself - God.
White glass was used in these windows. White glass without crosses or pictures is a norm coming from the General Chapters between 1149-1150, before the death of Bernard. Although later, this glass will be arranged in geometric designs.
White glass gives a whiteness or a splendid quality to light, a fitting symbol of divinity. For color is considered as irrelevant; it is seen as a distraction and suggests gradations in created things of the world. White is the sum of all colors of light, that is, of all creation in God.
White glass, serves to emphasize that Bernard’s common imagery is of a divine light which is not painful and dazzling but one that, in monastic contemplation, the human person is able to bear.
White glass supports a simplicity of life that is part of a pursuit of self-knowledge which marks monastic contemplation. To begin to know and see one’s self is to begin to know and see God. The opposite of self-knowledge (notitia sui) is curiosity (curiositas,) a distraction towards things with its negligent vision that tarnishes purity and simplicity of life so essential to knowing and seeing the transfigured and resplendent Christ. (RB 49) We can associate color with curiosity since color is proper to created things in contrast to white glass suggesting simplicity, focus of vision, transcending beyond all limits into the divine.
The Transfiguration: Christ in human form / Christ in divine form [3]
Pure prayer and the Transfiguration are intimately related for Cassian. He believed that the goal of a monk’s prayer was to see the glory of God shining through the transfigured Christ. Toward the end of his life, Cassian wrote: I see the ineffable illumination, I see the unexplained brillance, I see the splendor unbearable for human weakness and beyond what mortal eyes can bear, the majesty of God shining in unimaginable light. (De Inc 3.6.3) In Conference 10, Cassian had already located this brilliance in the Transfigured Christ.
In this conference we see a type of prayer that does focus on the human form of Christ in his public ministry and earthly ministry. This form of prayer can help our daily actual conversion from sin to virtue. There is another type of prayer, the pure prayer, purity of heart, that leads a monk into the mountain of solitude and into the presence of the Transfigured Christ. Monks are able to come to a richer understanding of Christ and his revelation of the Father to the degree that they are able to quiet their inner turmoil arising from their passions, desires, and thought process.
Thus, the mystery of the Transfiguration is a call to this process of pure prayer. To know the glorified and transfigured Christ, is to know God. This glorious Christ is not a “floodlit human Jesus” but a Jesus who, in his life, moved beyond all limits, beyond the self...even limits of a passion and death on a cross. In other words, to the degree that we in our life strive to move beyond limits by a healthy ascesis and self purification, we will come to a richer insight into Christ’s making known to us the Father.
Conclusion
Without any wall decoration depicting biblical themes but simply using a combination of window arrangement to focus on Christ, and white glass to express uncreated light, cistercians allude to the teaching of Cassian on pure prayer as the path to knowing the glorious Christ, the Christ of light, a vision of peace.
The very last written word we have of Bernard, given perhaps hours before his death reads:
Now as regards the night of ignorance, what could be clearer than what is said in another psalm: “They have not known, they have not understood, they walk in darkness.” (Ps 81.5) Does this not express perfectly the ignorance in which the whole human race was born? This is the ignorance, I think, which the blessed Apostle admits he was born in, and gives thanks that he was rescued from, when he says, “He has snatched us from the power of darkness.” (Col 1.13) Again, he says to all the elect, “We are not children of the night or of darkness; (1 Th 5.5) “Walk as children of light” (Eph 5.8) ( SC 86. 4)
ENDNOTES
1
Thoughts in this section come from Patrik Reutersward’s article, Windows of Divine Light, in his book, Forgotten Symbols of God, Stockholm Studies in History of Art 35, Uppsala 1986.
2
Thoughts in this section come direcly from Meredith Parsons Lillich’s article, Recent Scholarship Concerning Cistercian Windows, CS 141, Kalamazoo 1993, pp. 233-262.
3
Thoughts in this section come from Columba Stewart’s book, Cassian the Monk, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 95 ff. I wonder what influence Cassian’s teaching on the fleshy Jesus and the transfigured Jesus had for Bernard’s teaching about Christ-Flesh, Christ-Spirit.
