Sitting down at a table with Jesus directly across from you, He reaches forward and tenderly grasps both of your hands in His. As he peers deeply into your eyes, His gaze pierces the depths of your soul. Emotions rise as you experience His presence. He knows what your heart speaks. You need say nothing. Simply resting there together, soaking up each other’s countenance, Jesus holds your gaze with His gentle, blue eyes. There is an overriding calm that surrounds you as He is completely attentive to you. There is nothing more important in this moment. Just you and Jesus, you rest here in His love.
This experience with Jesus is how the Lord asks us to encounter others in the world. He invites us to sit with them in their particular situations and be present to them, calling us to look into their eyes and embrace them as they are, where they are. Often feeling seen is all someone needs to be able to carry on, enabling him or her to hoist the cross they have been given. He longs for us to be Jesus to each other. Just be with those we meet, embracing their uniqueness.
As we reflect on the many times in the Bible that Our Lord made His countenance known through his people, we begin to understand the importance of journeying with another. Recall Jesus as he walked the Way of the Cross. Our Lord sent numerous people to accompany him, offering him their presence as a means of lifting Jesus’ heart and assuring Him of God’s presence, tender care, and love. Jesus’ mother, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, Veronica, Simon, and the women of Jerusalem were all attending to Him. “Grace works that way. It’s a kind word from a gentle person with an impossible prayer. It’s a force sometimes transmitted best hand to hand in a dark place,” Bob Goff writes in Love Does, speaking to the importance of being with someone as they walk through their trials (2012, p. 180). On another occasion, prior to Jesus’ miraculous birth, Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth. “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit…Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home,” Luke 1: 41, 56 (NAB). Mary’s presence stirred the infant in Elizabeth womb to life. Elizabeth was blessed by Mary arriving to stay with her and witness God working in her life, simply accompanying her cousin on her journey. This is where the Lord calls us to cooperate, opening our eyes to the individuals He asks us to walk with each moment.
Call to Act: I encourage you to open your heart and be present to whomever God chooses to place in your path today. Encounter them and love them by just being present and aware. Beg the Lord to open your eyes and your heart to His beloved children. Be Christ to them. Witness and declare their goodness by your undivided attention. A tearful stranger, a quiet child, an angry bystander, or a lonely friend, simply slow and be attentive. Meet them where they are, no judgement, or advice. Just be.
St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us that we may be attentive to the souls the Lords places in our paths today. Beg God to open our eyes to the beauty and goodness in them. Ask Our Father to calm our hearts so we can accompany them in their trials. Thank the Lord for the goodness He has placed in each of us and for making His presence evident as we move through our days. Amen.
While visiting Antelope Canyon in Utah, I captured this image of a Lady in a Blue Dress. I immediately thought of Our Lady. She is always present.