Look Into My Eyes

I am part of a group of 4 people responsible for planning the readings, reflections, prayers, and songs every Thursday for the Hora Santa (an hour where people honor the Monstrance). We have been picking themes each time, themes with a certain degree of content. For instance, we have done the theme of peace (focused on how true peace cannot exist without justice), faith (focused on how faith is empty if it is not accompanied by works), and the Reign of God (focused on how we are called to work towards achieving the Reign of God here on Earth).

It was just this Thursday that we focused on the Reign of God. The reading we chose was from the Gospel of Luke, 17:20-21, which says, “Some Pharisees asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come. His answer was, ‘The Kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. No one will say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’; because the Kingdom of God is within you.’” The Kingdom of God, therefore, is not a destination but is present in each of us because Christ lives within us. I led the reflection after this reading, although I was nervous to speak in Spanish without notes in front of me. I think my face got kind of red out of nervousness. Anyway, I asked everyone there to look into the eyes of the person next to them, to look deep into their eyes because eyes are the window to our soul. It is within our soul that there exists a light which is Christ, making us sacraments (or encounters with Christ), just as the Monstrance is a form of the sacramental Christ. In being temples of Christ, we each have dignity, and it is in recognizing and honoring this dignity in each of us that we begin the construction of the Reign of God.

The reflection didn’t go exactly as planned in my mind because people did not want to look into each other's eyes. They all just remained looking at me. It could be a cultural discomfort, but I think it is unfortunate that in prayer, people have the habit of only looking up into the sky or down at their feet. Why don’t we look at each other? Each of us is a prayer. We are each sacred.

Hands of Solidarity

Just the other day I left my class at the University of El Salvador to travel back to Santo Domingo de Guzman. I got off an inner-city bus at the Western Bus Terminal with my money in hand ready to board the bus to Sonsonate (the biggest town near Santo Domingo). I have been trying to foster the habit of having my money ready so I am not rummaging through my wallet, drawing attention to what I’ve got. So, as I faced an old man, emaciated, leaning against a pole with a crutch, I rationalized not giving him any of the money in my hand. He also did not have a hat in his hand or even a hand out asking for money. Then a few yards away was a woman, also emaciated, sitting along the curb. I also passed her by. If I gave her a quarter, then I would have to get my wallet out of my bag, which I didn’t want to do. Justification. Then, as I was about to round the corner into the terminal, I was faced with a man with a withered arm, shaking, with a hat in his lap to collect money. What to do?

I was reminded of the story of Peter in the Gospels after Jesus was arrested. He was asked by three different people if he knew Jesus, and he denied him all three times. In my case, I was faced with Christ, present in these three people, people with human dignity. As I approached the third person, could I really deny Christ a third time? There will always be people asking for money, in need of assistance. How do I respond to everyone as a Christian?

This brings to mind how after the mass for the patron feast, the priest in my community invited the bishop and several other people to have lunch with him. We had served them all lunch, but they had an uninvited guest at the table. His name is Juan. He is mute and drools, but he can fully understand what you say to him. And he is a human being. The others at the table, however, did not even look at him. He just sat there and watched them eat. If he could have spoken, I wonder what he would have said. His eyes said enough. Christ’s eyes, eyes of hunger, hunger for food and for inclusion. We women cooks decided to serve him food, so he ate on the benches near us, although we could have invited him to actually sit with us. Don’t we as a church preach that we are all invited to the Lord’s Table? We all failed Christ, present in Juan, that day.