HOW DO WE SEE?

HOW DO WE SEE? Fr Luke Veronis Before we do anything in this life — before we speak, before we judge, before we love or fail to love — we look. We perceive. We interpret. And everything depends on how we see. In today’s Gospel reading, we hear Jesus say, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness.” How we see determines whether we will be filled with light or darkness. Well today, I want us to ask ourselves, "What is the condition of our eyes? How do we see?" Not with our physical eyes but with the eye of our soul — the inner lens through which we receive and interpret all of reality, all of life around me. We live in a world that tries to form how we see things. The news, our culture, our past wounds and trauma, the habits we have cultivated all shape the lens through which we look at life. And today I want us to ask ourselves whether we allow the Holy Spirit to purify and form our lens? Are we allowing the mind of Christ to form how we see the world? Or are we looking at life through clouded lens of our ego, pride, self-interest and sin? Sometimes we think that reality is neutral and everyone sees the same thing. Yet, this isn’t true. Two people can stand in the same room, meet the same person, experience the same event, and come away with entirely different perceptions. Why? Because we don’t see with our eyes alone. We see with our hearts. Saint Paul understood this when he wrote to his disciple Titus, “To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure.” What a remarkable statement! Saint Paul is speaking about how our heart forms our perception. The corrupted person looks at the world and finds corruption everywhere. The person with a pure heart looks at the same world and sees the beauty of God everywhere. The Fathers of the Church called this perception our nous - the spiritual faculty of the soul by which we perceive divine reality. When the nous is healthy, illumined by divine grace, we see truthfully. When it is darkened by sin and passion, we misread everything. We project our own darkness onto others. We see enemies where there are brothers and sisters. We focus on ugliness instead of beauty. We entirely miss God's presence right in front of us. There’s a revealing story from the Desert Fathers where an elder walks along a road with two disciples. As they walk, a woman of ill repute passes by. The two disciples immediately cast their eyes downward, turning away so as not to look at her. The elder, however, stares at the woman as she passes by. The younger monks are scandalized. How could their elder look at such a woman? When the disciples ask their elder why he looked, he said with purity of heart, “I saw a child of God for whose soul Christ died. And I grieved for her and I prayed for her.”  “And you,” he asked, “why did you look away?” They were silent for in their hearts they feared to see what their hearts projected. The one who looks with purity sees with purity. The one who looks with corruption sees only temptation. The way we see has nothing to do with the woman. The issue was the eye and interior condition of each heart. One had been purified enough to see the image of God even within one whom society looked upon as lost. Remember the words of our Lord Jesus in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Purity of heart is not simply the absence of sin but the presence of a capacity to perceive divine beauty hidden within all things. Saint Gregory of Nyssa teaches the pure in heart mirror God Himself. Just as a polished mirror reflects light, so the purified soul reflects and perceives divine light. The goal of the Christian life is nothing less than to become a mirror of God — to become so transparent, so free of the distortions of sin, that God shines through us, and we see God shining through others. Saint John Chrysostom puts it bluntly: “If you have purity, you will behold God.” The person who has cultivated purity of heart begins to see what the ordinary eye misses, the presence of God in the poor man's face, in the beauty of creation, in the suffering of a neighbor, in the ordinary moments of daily life. So, what must we do to obtain purity of heart? The Church answers in Psalm 51, a prayer we should say every day. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and do not take away your Holy Spirit from me.” This is the prayer of someone who knows they cannot purify themselves by willpower alone. King David did not say “I will clean my heart,” but implores to God, “Create in me a clean heart.” We ask God to do in us what only He can do, make us a new creation. And the Church offers us the means for this re-creation. Holy Confession cleanses us from the accumulated grime of sin. Holy Communion unites us to the very life of Christ. The prayer life of the Church forms the mind of Christ in us. The spiritual discipline of fasting weakens the grip of our passions. And our acts of mercy, where we see and serve Christ in the least of our brothers and sisters, trains our eyes to see with His eyes. These daily practices help us see life in a different way. Every time we choose mercy over judgment, we strengthen our capacity to see with the eyes of God’s mercy. Each time we turn back toward God in repentance, we cleanse our soul. Every time we receive worship the Lord, we united ourselves with the very light of Christ. So, through what lens are you looking at the world today? May God grant each of us this grace, creating in us a clean heart, and putting a new and right spirit so that we may see with His eyes, finding His beauty hidden everywhere in this world, in each other, and in ourselves.