As the Church celebrates the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Abbot Marion Nguyen offers a meditation titled “The Grit of Light: When Mercy Displaces Darkness,” inviting believers to reconsider what it truly means to be “the light of the world.”
When Jesus tells his disciples that they are the light of the world, the phrase can feel comforting, even affirming. In modern ears, “light” often suggests self-expression, personal wholeness, or an inner sense of authenticity. Yet the prophet Isaiah quickly unsettles this gentle interpretation. In his vision, light is not soft or sentimental it has weight and cost. It breaks through when bread is shared with the hungry, when the homeless are welcomed in, and when oppression, accusation, and despair are actively removed. Light, Isaiah insists, does not emerge from inward reflection alone; it appears when darkness is confronted and driven back.
This perspective sharpens how Jesus’ words should be heard. His declaration about light follows directly after the Beatitudes, which speak of the poor, the meek, and the persecuted figures that ultimately reflect Jesus himself. To become light, then, is not to rise above suffering, but to step into it, to stand alongside those already close to the Kingdom. This is not self-realization in the modern sense, but the fulfillment of our humanity through merciful love, entirely directed toward the glory of the Father. What Isaiah anticipates, Jesus later makes unmistakably clear in Matthew 25: light shines wherever mercy takes visible, concrete form.
From within the monastic tradition, this teaching exposes a tension. At first glance, monks seem ill-equipped to carry out the corporal works of mercy. They own nothing, not even themselves, as the Rule of St. Benedict reminds them. How, then, can they feed the hungry or clothe the poor? Benedictine life, however, has never understood mercy as a purely individual effort. What the monk cannot do alone, the community does together. St. Benedict devotes careful attention to hospitality, especially the role of the porter and the reception of guests. Every guest is to be welcomed as Christ himself, offered food and care freely often more generously than what the monks reserve for themselves. In earlier Benedictine practice, fasting was not a private spiritual achievement; the food set aside was given directly to the poor. Mercy remained tangible and real, yet stripped of vanity, because it was never about personal accomplishment.
Isaiah’s challenge, however, reaches even deeper, touching the inner life. “If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech,” the prophet says, and here his words speak powerfully to the heart of monastic discipline. For the monk, the hardest work of allowing light to shine takes place within. Benedict is unsparing in his clarity: whatever is good comes from God; whatever goes wrong is the monk’s responsibility. This is not an invitation to self-contempt, but to spiritual honesty.
Inner oppression begins when a monk allows destructive impulses to rule his heart. False accusation is not merely a social failing; it betrays a refusal of humility, a denial of the fear of God who is present everywhere and is Truth itself. To accuse others is to evade responsibility and resist the vulnerability required by true humility where faults are confessed and one accepts even small contributions to failure. The urge to accuse, Benedict teaches, reveals immaturity rather than insight.
Malicious speech cuts even deeper. It directly contradicts the final step of humility. Instead of faithfully attending to his own work, the monk begins to scrutinize everything around him, inserting himself into matters that are not his concern. What starts as irritation often rooted in attachment to one’s own will hardens into murmuring. Murmuring seeks allies, spreads negativity, and eventually becomes presumption: speaking against authority, order, and peace. Benedict understands how quickly this corrodes community life and how effectively it smothers light.
At first, this interior struggle may seem far removed from Jesus’ call to let our light shine for the Father’s glory. In reality, this is precisely where light is either freed or extinguished. The monk learns that holiness is less about adding more good deeds and more about removing whatever he himself has placed over the light already given. The psalmist grasped this truth long ago: without God’s Spirit, all life returns to dust. Light is not something we create; it is God’s life within us. Like the elder son in the parable of the prodigal, we often think love must be earned. In truth, it must be received and protected. The light belongs to God before it ever belongs to us.
This understanding explains why monasteries are so often built on hills Subiaco, Monte Cassino, Montserrat not as symbols of achievement, but as signs. People do not come seeking brilliance or display. They come looking for peace, presence, and a quiet radiance that does not draw attention to itself. When monks faithfully do the work that is truly theirs, the community itself becomes light not because it strives to shine, but because nothing remains to hide the light God has already placed within it.