One of our subscribers wrote to tell me about the time his family’s holiday to Greece turned into an “unexpected pilgrimage”. While passing through the village of Stavros, they were drawn into the celebrations for the Orthodox Church’s patronal feast day: the Transfiguration (which we mark this month).

At first, they were attracted by the merry feasting and dancing. But as the evening progressed, he noticed the open church doors and the line of people slipping inside to light candles and pray. The community had been displaced from Ithaca in the early 20th century. “What impressed me,” John said, “was how well these refugees have rebuilt their lives, maintained their community, and invited others in to share their joy—that they celebrate their parish feast day in such a wholesome way, and how they integrate partying with praying.”

The light spilling out from inside that church and into the lives of the community struck me as a powerful image of the way the light of Christ—glimpsed by the apostles at the Transfiguration—simultaneously calls us to go out to others in joy and to return to the quiet place of contemplation.