Dear Beloved of Trinity,
As you may know, each day this month, I have been posting a short video reflection on social media, working my way through John O’Donohue’s book To Bless the Space Between Us.
Today, I offer a brief reflection on O’Donohue’s blessing entitled The Eyes of Jesus.
I imagine the eyes of Jesus were harvest brown,
the light of their gazing suffused with the seasons:
the shadow of winter,
the mind of spring,
the blues of summer,
and the amber of harvest.
The eyes of Jesus gaze on us.¸
This gaze knows the signature of our heartbeat.
It recognizes us before we explain ourselves,
names us before we speak.
Forever falling softly on our faces,
his gaze piles the soul with light.
What we cast our gaze upon, over time, shapes our lives. Our attention is never neutral; it forms our desires, trains our loves, and slowly makes us into a certain kind of person. So we are wise to be gentle and cautious with our looking—with what we linger over, what we scroll past,
what we allow to claim our eyes and our hearts.
And yet, there is a gaze that does not drain us or scatter us.
The gaze of Jesus does not demand or diminish.
It rests upon us with patience and delight.
To meet his eyes is to be seen without fear,
known without being reduced,
loved without condition.
This is the gaze that changes us.
This is the gaze that sustains us.
This is the gaze that quietly reminds us, again and again,
that we are already beloved.
Grace and peace,
Paul+