The cross of Jesus Christ is central to our mission. Like the apostle Paul, we “preach Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2: 2). If we bear in our body the death of Jesus, it is with the hope that the life of Jesus, too, may be seen in our body (cf. 2 Cor 4:10). Through the eyes of our crucified Saviour we see the world which he redeemed with his blood, desiring that those in whom he continues to suffer will know also the power of his resurrection (cf. Phil 3: 10). (Constitution 4)
As cooperators of the Savior, we are invited to look at people through His eyes. Eugene is a good teacher for us. In his first Lenten sermon in Aix en Provence, he addressed his poor listeners:
Come now and learn from us what you are in the eyes of faith.
Poor of Jesus Christ, afflicted, wretched, suffering, sick, covered with sores, etc., all you whom misery oppresses, my brothers, dear brothers, respected brothers, listen to me.
You are God’s children, the brothers of Jesus Christ, heirs to his eternal kingdom, chosen portion of his inheritance…
…let your eyes see for once beneath the rags that cover you, there is within you an immortal soul made in the image of God whom it is destined to possess one day, a soul ransomed at the price of the blood of Jesus Christ, more precious in the eyes of God than all earth’s riches, than all the kingdoms of the earth, a soul of which he is more jealous than of the government of the entire universe.
Christians, know then your dignity…
Notes for the first instruction in the Church of the Madeleine, E.O. XV n. 114
What a difference it would make if we were to train ourselves to see everyone through the lens of the eyes of the crucified Savior!
“Come now and learn from us what you are in the eyes of faith.” Each time I read this I realize that for some reason I replace the word “what” with the word “who”. Growing up in midst of great violence I thought of myself as a “thing”, a shell and an empty casing; describing myself as a robot. In hearing God say my name and claim me as God’s own, that transformation began within me as step-by-step I was becoming reshaped by the Master Potter: led to act like a human being…
I think of the Oblate Motto as lived out by the members of the Oblate Charismatic Family: “We are sent to evangelize the poor: the poor are evangelized.” It is in allowing ourselves to be sent to share the Good News and our experience of God with the poorest of the poor, especially those who are left untouched by the structures of the Church that we begin to see “through the eyes of our crucified Saviour…, and see the world which he redeemed with his blood…”
It is never just a matter of praying with nice words, or even holy words. We freely enter into a society, a family which then allows and teaches each of us how to look at each other through the eyes of our crucified Saviour. It is a magnificent flow that allows and teaches us to live out the vocation that we have been called and invited to and to continuously dare to deepen.
Today we dare…