The Eyes of Christ
By: Missionary Team
Look at them. Can you see it? It’s piercing. He’s looking right at me! I can’t look away!
Have you ever stopped and looked at the eyes of Christ? Look at pictures, look at His closed eyes on the Cross. It’s incredible what you see. So much in a still, unchanging picture or Crucifix.
When I was younger, I fell in love with a picture of Our Lord that was hanging up in our living room. There was something about this picture that caught my attention. It was the fact that no matter where you stood in the room, it looked like Jesus was staring right at you. It didn’t matter where I was in the room, directly in front of the picture standing up, sitting down, to the left, or to the right, He always looked like He was staring at me and there was love in His eyes.
I remember praying the Chaplet and just being held captive by staring into His eyes. To this day, that is my favorite picture of Our Lord.
Last month, I got a picture of the Divine Mercy (Jesus, I Trust In You) for my desk. Sometimes I find myself just staring at the eyes of Christ in the picture. I was surprised at what I saw in His eyes.
Every time I look at the picture, I see pity, mercy, love, and sadness. I see Jesus looking at me with pity and mercy. I see just how much Christ loves me. Sometimes I see the love, and the pity, and the mercy, but I also see the sadness. I see such a sadness at times in the eyes of Our Lord. On days that I am struggling, just to see these things in the eyes of my Lord, makes me stop. I just stare at His eyes, and I don’t want to look away. Sometimes I see joy in His eyes as well.
There is a large Crucifix that caught my attention today. I was struggling and I looked up at Our Lord’s face on the Crucifix and even though His eyes were closed, I could still see how much love He had in just those closed eyes.
I don’t always see these things when I look at the eyes of my Lord. But I seem to see more in His eyes when I myself am struggling. Even though it is just a picture or just the Crucifix, I know that what I see in that image is how He looks at ME.
Think about it for just a moment. How is Jesus looking at YOU right now? For me, it depends on my days. On the days when I am struggling the most and beating up on myself, I think that Jesus is looking down on me with love, pity, mercy, and sadness. And I can understand why Jesus would be looking at me like this.
I know He is always looking at me with love and mercy. I think He looks at me with pity too when I am suffering because He understands what I am going through and how hard it is for me. I think He looks at me with sadness when I am beating myself up and not reaching out for help because I am rejecting the help He has put in my life and that He offers to me, that I reject when I stay stuck in the muck.
When I am happy and having a great day, I think that Jesus is celebrating my joy with me.
What I have seen in Our Lord's eyes I have also started to see in the eyes of ordinary people. I have started to look at the pictures of different people hanging up on the walls. I see the joy in their eyes. I also see the pain and sadness in their eyes, despite their smiles.
It has reminded me that you never know what somebody is going through and that just looking someone in the eyes can tell you so much about them and how they are doing. Everyone needs to experience the love and mercy that Christ has for them; it can be seen easily by the Cross but also just in pictures of Our Lord.
Christ is in each person that we meet. When you look into someone’s eyes, you see the eyes of Christ looking back at you. Never let a day go by without gazing into the eyes of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ
