Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Virtues are connected, and so are vices. Faith and charity are to go hand and hand, such that if one is truly present, the other should be found as well. If I truly believe in the God who is love, then I should love that God and love those whom that God loves. So in Daniel’s description of the fall of the wicked elders, there is a profile which seems to include the basis for a variety of sins. Their sin is specified as lust, but it is explained as follows: “When the elders saw her enter every day for her walk, they began to lust for her. They perverted their thinking; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments.” (Daniel 13:8-9)
The eyes of the elders looked at, but did not see, a human person, created in the image and likeness of God, to whom God had made promises, who was a part of God’s Chosen People, who had relationships and a heart and a life. Instead, they twist their minds to exclude all the profundity of the human person before them, they do not pray and ask the God of heaven how He sees this person, and so, in this vacuum of missing reality and neglected reverence, justice too departs. They do not see a person, but rather an object for them to feel pleased. This objectification of some persons for lust can easily become the objectification for wrath (this is not a person, but an object for my own pursuit of self-righteousness), or greed (this is not a person, but an obstacle to my material satisfaction), or worst of all, pride (this is not a person, but simply an object worth only my disdain). This last seems to be the vice of the Pharisees, which finds lethal vent in the case of the woman thrown before the crowd and Jesus in today’s Gospel.
Yet, what do Jesus’ eyes see? As we contemplate Jesus’ gaze upon the Pharisees can we allow the Lord who is Goodness itself to look into my heart and be the mirror that shows me the sin my eyes have sought not to see? As I look deeper into the eyes of Mercy Incarnate, will I allow the divine eyes to see my worth and innocence that others (and I) have habitually overlooked? Let us pray for the grace to look into Christ’s eyes, so as to see others with His look.