Behind a picture frame in my office, next to the Trinity icon by Russian painter Andrei Rublev, sits a domed paperweight made of pure glass.

Sometimes a sunbeam will strike it just right and a tiny rainbow will sparkle on the wall. Physicists explain that when a ray of light enters a translucent stone, it bends or refracts, revealing the colors of the visible spectrum.

You may have seen something similar, a suncatcher, perhaps?

It’s a small reflective crystal hung near a window to “catch” sunlight. They’re enchanting little ornaments. Not only do they dazzle when filled with light, but beautiful multi-colored circles and semicircles create a kaleidoscopic environment of movement and energy.

Maybe Basil the Great had something like this in mind when he wrote nearly 1,700 years ago:

“When a sunbeam falls on a transparent substance, the substance itself becomes brilliant, and radiates light from itself. So too Spirit-bearing souls, illumined by God, finally become spiritual themselves…becoming like Him.”

We all begin the Threefold Way as dark translucent stones, lacking something essential—something we can only receive from without—we need the divine light of the Trinity to pierce and permeate our souls.

This is what happens in the Illuminative way.

An aperture is opened within us, divine light thrusts away the darkness and begins to fill the inward corners of our soul—making us inwardly brilliant and outwardly radiant—making us like God.