“Then turning to the disciples he said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes which see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.’” (Lk 10: 23-24)
A busy mom sometimes writes to me, lamenting the fact that she has so little time for prayer. On some days, she writes, “all” she can “manage” is to venerate her icons alone in the morning and at night.
But as I’m reading the passage quoted above, read today in our NC-churches, celebrating the famous “Image of the Lord ‘Not-Made-By-Hands’,” I’m thinking how, indeed, “blessed” are her (and our) “eyes which see” what they see, merely by directing their faithful gaze toward holy images. This is no small “blessing.” In coming to us in His mind-blowing incarnation, our Lord made possible for us that which had not been possible before His coming: to see His beautiful face.
Let me be blessed today, throughout my day, by looking prayerfully toward my holy icons, be it at home in the kitchen, when I’m busy preparing breakfast, or in the car as I’m stuck in a traffic-jam, or in the office as I’m replying to emails. Even if this is all I can manage today, let me be gratefully blessed through my eyes, whenever I choose to direct them toward the ever-loving, ever present Face of One Who comes to us, again and again, in His holy images.
