LUMI. - Distinct intuitions, of a theoretical or practical order, destined to guide the soul in faith or in action.
The term in spiritual theology does not yet have a precise and determined meaning; it is frequently used to indicate also the illuminations of the intellect. Properly, however, illuminations are supernatural knowledge of prevalently extrinsic origin (God, angels), while lumi are rather the effect of personal meditations, always under the influence of the habit of faith and of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, particularly of knowledge, understanding and counsel.
They belong to the discursive order, taking on the aspect of clear and luminous syntheses, of truths that can be reached by adequate reasoning, but which in this case are perceived more rapidly and vividly. They could be called conclusions, which instead of being gathered with long mental labor from a complex of premises, result from a few operations. They are usually had especially in persons of great intelligence, devoted to meditative prayer, and accustomed to abstracting essential truths from the contingent, but also in simpler souls, and then ordinarily more passively through infused gifts.
Lumi are often sudden, analogously to the so-called strokes of genius, and they greatly deepen the knowledge of heavenly things (attributes of God, mysteries of the life, death and resurrection of Christ, providential events, relations between the Church, the Pontiff and the spiritual life, etc.). Being personal and not ordinarily retracing subjects and schemes already elaborated, they become fixed more deeply in the soul that enjoys them, moving it more effectively toward good and holiness. They are more frequent in the period of asceticism called illuminative.
Arnaldo M. Lanz