With the Eyes of Love
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Reflection of Fr. Earl Valdez for the Fourth Sunday of Lent
How do we feel when someone stares at us? While we are curious about others and that we look at them on random instances, it sometimes feels uncomfortable when somebody stares back at us suddenly. Perhaps we won’t mind if it was somebody we know, or somebody we find attractive, but in general, to be looked at brings this level of discomfort. It’s as if we are judged by who we are, and we don’t know what others think about us. In other words, we are in a sense “naked” before another person.
Because we know that most of the time that we are outside and exposed to the public eye, so to speak, we do our best to look reputable. We want to dress well, we want to be called titles, and we want people to speak of our success. How we present ourselves matters primarily because when we encounter situations of being looked at, of being judged and evaluated, we want to see ourselves to be seen with respect and admiration. This eventually becomes the standard by which we live in this world, and the world takes these as the standards by which we live. Anything that is ugly, unpresentable, and bizarre were barely treated with any form of respect or recognition that befits others.
It’s the perfect time for us to think about how this comes in contrast with the way God looks at us and “judges” us. We see that our readings today have so much about seeing and being seen. In the first reading, we see the Lord explicitly directing Samuel to not judge by how one looks, because the Lord sees primarily not on our appearance, but first with the disposition of our heart. This is why the Lord has chosen the youngest, seemingly the most insignificant in the eyes of the family of Jesse: David, who, as the Lord had willed, the greatest in Israel.
This way of seeing is all the more emphasized by the Lord in the gospels today. As he cured the blind man , he saw past the judgment of the people around Him. He did not see the man’s blindness as a curse, but a simple inability that only needed healing. In contrast to the eyes that saw judgment by the world’s standards of success and purity, Our Lord saw with the eyes of love, those same eyes of the Father which sees through the heart and looks at the goodness within.
When he instructed the blind man to go to the pool and wash himself after having healed his eyes, it was then that the gift of seeing was restored. However, the sight granted to the blind man enabled him to see not as we do, but how God does. He saw that forgiveness and healing is possible, because the Lord sees us with the eyes of love. This comes in contrast to the Pharisees, whose judging eyes, in the end, lacked true sight.
It is with these eyes of mercy that the Lord looks upon us, which is the very reason why we wear pink today. We rejoice because we are loved, and we have yet to see this love in its fullness once we enter the Easter Triduum. God has looked upon us with so much love to the point that He willingly goes through suffering and death, perhaps sharing in the ugliest sight of who we are, for us to be as resplendent in beauty as we share in His Resurrection. This is what seeing with love does to us, and our gratefulness ought to move us to see in the way the Lord sees us.
This leads us to reflect on the way we see ourselves, the world, and God. Do we see each other with the eyes of judgment, and live according to what the world sees as beautiful, presentable, and successful? Or do we see first with the eyes of faith, looking and appreciating the goodness in each and everyone, and thus bearing with it hope as well as expressing love? Like the Lord, may we have our eyes that see like Him, which enables us also to aid those who lack this kind of sight.
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