I was at Church today praying before Mass with my eyes closed. For a second time in a three to four month period, something unusual happened: my eyelids became translucent as if I was looking right through them, but I wasn’t seeing the pews and people around me. Hard to explain - it was blank. In the corner of my eye came a light, a white light, like a fluorescent bulb light. Not a warm a incandescent yellowy white light. This went on for several minutes. It was curious, not scary or frightening. When I opened my eyes there was no light source to explain. I could hear what was going on around me. There was no message or voice. The first time this happened I was in the chapel during the stations of the cross. Today I was in the main church. My prayers were prayers of thanksgiving and several petitions/intentions for specific people in my life. Nothing extraordinary.
I don’t know if anyone else has ever experienced anything like this. I have never heard of anything like this. I’m not making any claims about this being supernatural or natural. I don’t know how to explain the experience other than what I have written above. I am just exploring to see if this is something others have experienced. It just happened and I am at a loss to understand it. I close my eyes often to pray and this does not happen, except twice within the past few months.
Focussing solely and specifically on your question, no reference made to my own spiritual journey, for better or worse, but having read quite a few Catholic books, it does sound genuinely like a religious experience given by the Holy Spirit. The fact there was no light-source when you opened your eyes means that you were momentarily ‘caught up’ in God’s grace. I don’t see that there is any argument against this being the case.
Thanks, MorganPJD. I appreciate your thoughts and insights. It could have been a religious experience. I need to be open to that possibility. Your description of being momentarily caught up in God’s grace is beautiful. Thank you. If only I were so blessed!
Wow, that is interesting. I won’t ask you to WebMD it, because you will come to the conclusion that you are dying!
Personally, I find the LED White lights that are popular very off-putting. I prefer the warmth of softer lights. If Heaven looks like a 90’s Radio Shack, I might think I’m not in Heaven, or that I bi-located to my Brother’s house (he loves those white lights for some reason, and he doesn’t believe in God nor Heaven, so add him to your Prayers. His name is Brandon : )
Internet says: “Your description is consistent with a hypnogogic hallucination or closed-eye visual phenomenon.”
That doesn’t mean that your experience wasn’t divine in origin. But it also doesn’t mean that it was, and certainly could have been your brain doing what brains can/will do without any divine influence.
If it helps you to think that it was divinely inspired, I say…rock on!
