Reflections from the Heart – August 7, 2022

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
by Fr. Ivan Olmo

“See, the eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him, upon those who hope for his kindness.” Have you ever stopped to consider or spent some quiet, quality, dedicated time to contemplate the fact that God sees us? He really sees us. God has set his gaze upon us. His eyes are fixed on us and look at us as he beholds his beautiful, yet at times unfaithful creation. God sees us. He really sees us. He is looking at you right now. What do you think he sees when he sets his gaze upon you, beholds you, looks right at you? Remember, we don’t think or see as God does because God knows our runaway thoughts and still looks into our hearts and sees us. How we see God and think about him is important, because it is how we tend to view and see him. If we think God looks at us in a negative way, we tend to project our vision of God in a similar way. But God loves the sinner and loathes the sin. He sees the person and their struggle. He sees their good intentions. God looks at us and sees his beloved children. He sees good children that at times do bad things and other times do very bad things. In God’s eyes, that doesn’t make us less loved. He still sees good in us. He will always see the good in us. Our prayer and intention should be to gaze upon God and behold and look upon him as he beholds and looks upon us – in kindness, in patience, in love, in mercy, in beauty. We should want to look into the eyes of God so that we may see the face of beauty and see our reflection. We should want to look into the heart of God and see how much we are loved. We should want to look into the mind of God to come to know the truth of what he really thinks of us. He truly loves us. He thinks we are good for all he made is very good. God sees us in a positive light despite the darkness of our sinfulness. So, if God can look into our hearts divided by sin, pride, greed and envy and still see good, why can’t we? Do you see what God sees or is it different? Why? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. May you see the beauty and goodness of God in your eyes and in your heart.