When a candle is lit inside an open glass container, at first there is considerable smoke. The glass blackens. The job is still starting.

After a while, the smoke dies down. It may not completely stop, but it puffs with less frequency. By this point, a considerable amount of the glass has taken on the appearance that the fire gave to it: it’s been blackened.

This is like Christian life, contemplation, Transfiguration in Christ.

When we are beginning, we are noisy; when the fire of the Spirit is placed inside us, we often get in the way of the Spirit’s initiatives; we haven’t yet been converted, transformed (as Saint John of the Cross says), transfigured (as is more commonly said in the East). We smoke. We splutter. It is not a simple work. It is not just a gently burning fire. There is also smoke.

But with time, if we do not put out the fire, the fire continues to burn steadily. It does not destroy the glass container. But it does change its appearance a bit (that’s Transfiguration). The light shines through, and the colour is a bit different from how it began. But the change of colour means that the smoke has less reason to occur. Why would there be smoke now? The fire and the glass are working together; rather, the fire is burning within the container without consuming the glass, because they have now been together for a long time. The glass looks as the fire wants it to.

Of course, occasionally, the smoke starts again.

But it happens less and less.

The appearance of the glass is, on the whole, more like how the fire wanted it to be, in order for the fire to simply glow and not burn painfully; the glass has been transformed.