My daughter, away at college, was all smiles when she appeared on screen for our Sunday family video call.
“What’s the matter?” I said, as soon as I saw her face.
Behind the smiles, she looked tired. Nothing else revealed the tiredness, but I could see it in her eyes.
“I’m just tired,” she admitted, indicating the full week of work she’d just completed and the paper she was writing.
I was right. She was swamped.
A mother instinctively knows things unseen and unsaid.
20/20 vision
Remember when you were growing up and it seemed like your own mother had “eyes in the back of her head?”
It’s true. They’re there. You just can’t see them, but they automatically give all mothers 20/20 vision.
One can tell a lot from the eyes: Tiredness, illness, sadness, frustration, fear, joy, love. The eyes are, after all, the “window to the soul.” Shakespeare wasn’t wrong.
Different lenses
If a mother has a special lens and with one look can know what you’re feeling, then turn it around and think about the way you look out at the world, at your life, and at the people around you.
Through what “lens” do your own eyes see the life God has given you?
Is it a lens of entitlement or gratitude? Pride or humility? Sadness or joy? Anxiety or hope?
Depending on what is happening in your life, at different times you may have different lenses.
Eyes of faith
One lens should remain consistent: Seeing everything — good and bad — through the eyes of faith. This means trying to take a step back and seeing things from God’s perspective: With as much love as possible, no matter what is happening.
Eyes of faith will view all circumstances with questions such as: Do you trust God’s truth and promises? How is God drawing you closer to Him through this particular suffering? How is He inviting you to grow in your interior life? Do you offer up everything you do for Him every moment of every day? What can you do in your own life to make an effort to love God, above all else, even more?
With practice and prayer, the eyes of faith can help you gain 20/20 vision in your spiritual life.
Knowing the unseen, unsaid
Consider, for a moment, the artwork above at the back of the old church near my house. Mary holds the Infant Jesus tenderly as they both gaze beyond the viewer into the unseen realm of Heaven.
No matter where you stand in front of them, Mary and Jesus are always looking with the eyes of faith that reveal an otherworldly sense of peace and love that this world cannot give.
Would that we could look out at the world through this lens at all times!
If you haven’t yet donned the lens of the eyes of faith this Lent, it’s not too late, especially as we approach the Sacred Triduum and enter into the Passion of Our Lord.
With the eyes of faith, take time to ponder how we can learn from Mary and Jesus, who know all things unseen and unsaid.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four children, is a teacher’s aide at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Waunakee.