During this Holy Year of Mercy, we are being called upon to become true vessels of mercy for the world – which is impossible to do without a lot of grace – and the right attitude!
In his book, You Did It to Me, Father Michael E. Gaitley, MIC calls that right attitude the “merciful outlook” and says this is what makes the difference between just “doing” mercy and “being” mercy to others.
As he explains, “Many people today avoid the Lord, thinking that he must not love them because of their sins. They think God has rejected them, and so they’ve given up on trying to please him. Yet even if they’ve given up on Jesus, he hasn’t given up on them. If they’re too afraid to go to him, he’s decided to go to them. But in going to them, he’s cautions because he knows that at even the slightest sign of him, they’ll bolt. So Jesus goes to them incognito. Can you guess what disguise he uses?”
You and me.
This is why it’s so important to learn how to “look” at others the way Jesus looks at them. It’s not about judging people, or feeling sorry for them, or even proselytizing. It’s all about learning how to see them.
“It’s a subtle way of seeing others . . . that communicates to them a simple and sincere message, ‘I delight that you exist’,” Father Gaitley describes.
Jesus wants others to feel his loving gaze through our gaze, through our merciful outlook, but the only way to really feel delight in another is to grasp the truth and beauty of the authentic self of the other.
“And who is the other? The other is Christ,” Father Gaitely says.
But he’s not talking about an overly-spiritualized idea of seeing Christ as if he’s “hiding” in the other.
Instead, we must learn to realize that “The other is Christ insofar as he’s a member of Christ’s Mystical Body (or, if he’s not a Christian, he’s a prospective member of Christ by virtue of his being made in the image of God and called to full membership in Christ’s body). . . . [T]o be a member of Christ’s Body is truly to be Christ.”
We know this truth from Scripture. For example, when Jesus spoke to Saul on the road to Damascus, he didn’t ask, “Why are you persecuting my followers?” Instead, he asked, “Why are you persecuting me?”
We’re all the Body of Christ – whether that be in the past, present or the future tense.
Those of us who know and love Christ are called to know and love more than just Christ the head, but also Christ in his members. In other words, “those other people are him,” Fr. Gaitley writes.
When we learn how to see people this way, with the merciful outlook of Christ, people can sense it, feel it. And it changes them.
For instance, instead of seeing the sin and the rejection of God, we see the beauty of what God created. Even in the unrepentant, we can still see what God sees – a vocation to greatness – even though it may still be entombed in a hardened heart.
“Amazingly, when such a sinner recognizes that God sees this greatness in him, he begins to come alive,” Father Gaitley describes. “Such is the gaze of God. Such is the power of mercy. Such is the meaning and power of the merciful outlook. It draws out the good and brings back to life. It’s a God-like gazing on others that draws out their goodness and brings them into a new and abundant life.”
When we acquire a merciful outlook, this gaze becomes our gaze. Imagine how much good we could do in this world if we could but look at others the way Jesus does!
Of course, it’s not easy to see what God sees in the unrepentant, but it’s not impossible. It’s just more of a challenge, Fr. Gaitley says.
“It takes practice. It takes grace. It takes begging for the gift of grace.”
What better time to ask for this great gift of grace than during the Holy Year of Mercy?
Let us begin this year on our knees, begging to for the grace we need to really make a difference in our world this year by learning how to see everyone through the loving eyes of God.
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Father Gaitley has been a frequent guest on Women of Grace. Check out his most recent shows!
