Look at the Eyes of Jesus

Look at the eyes of Jesus.

Look at the eyes of Jesus and tell me .. what do you see?

No, I mean, really look.

Look like your life depends on them.

Cling like they are lifelines.

Really, truly just … look.

Do you find this hard to do? Do your eyes wander after a moment? Do you start to see double? Do you become sleepy or feel slightly awkward looking at a picture that long?

Maybe this is the portrait referred to as the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Maybe you remember seeing this portrait, growing up, but the first time you ever stopped and really looked, it was to ask your nun friend passing by what it was. And maybe this nun is one of the Sisters of the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart, and she couldn’t help smiling that you happened to ask her.

At least for me, this is what happened.

Today, in the midst of so much turmoil and mess that is my life, there are people in it that tell me that God loves me. But do I ever believe it?

I don’t know much about love.

I just got out of a toxic relationship so I know a bit more about use -- the opposite of love.

I mean, have you ever felt so bad throughout a day that you looked back at the end of it and realized you hadn’t eaten?

And you’re just curled up there in the corner of a room somewhere, thinking about the mess that is your life.

And how Mother Angelica said that feelings are not really important when it comes to whether God has forgiven us for mistakes we have yet to forgive in ourselves. “If you have made a good Confession and the priest says those magical words of ‘absolution,’ then you are forgiven. That is a reality. Whether you choose to believe it or not.”

How about the fact that I allowed myself to be misled by a man that now only treats me with coldness and indifference?

I gave my care and love to him. I was generous, kind, sweet.

Still, he treats me only with ingratitude and disdain.

Sound familiar?

“Behold this heart which loves so much yet is so little loved. Do me the kindness . . . of making up for their ingratitude, as far as you can.” Jesus once said this to St. Margaret Mary.

And yet, how does this tie into my mess?

How can I love you Jesus, when I do not even love myself?

Because he loves me enough for the both of us.

Because every human being longs to be loved and, yes, that humanity includes me.

St. Pope John Paul II said that “the objective starting point of love is the realization that I am needed by another; The person who objectively needs me most is also, for me, objectively, the person I most need.”

In this case, I am that person.

In this case, I am the person that consoles Jesus in my suffering with him.

Jesus, I don’t know what it felt like to be rejected to the extent that you were -- that you are -- but I do know what it’s like to pour myself into another in the hopes of inspiring that other to make a better person of themselves and have that love left flowing over an empty floor.

What does it feel like, Jesus, to want to be a friend to someone and have them tell you something like “I don’t have any friends”?

Yes, you do. . . Yes, we do have friends. We have friends in Jesus. Jesus and the love he pours out upon even the humanity that slaps it away -- that is the love of a friend. That is the love of someone who truly cares about us.

Look at the eyes of Jesus.

Just look . .

You don’t have to say anything.

You don’t have to accept what you’ve done because he will get you there.

You don’t have to deserve it.

You just have to take it.

Look at the eyes of Jesus and see -- truly see -- all the love that he pours out upon humanity.

Look at the love that he silently waits for you to see.