The Eyes of the Beholder

by Nthabiseng Maphisa · Published December 10, 2021 · Updated December 9, 2021

Photo: Marina Vitale/unsplash

Grace, in the dawn of time, poured out love, and from this outpouring of love I was born. I entered a world that is both beautiful and tainted. I was given what I needed to navigate this perilous paradise.

Grace had given me ears to hear, and though I heard, I didn’t always listen. Grace had given me a voice to speak and sing, and speaking and singing I did. I even chanted my prayers. Grace had given me feet to walk, and walking I did; sometimes I jumped, sometimes I ran.

Grace had given me eyes to see, and what love flowed into my heart when I became a beholder and beheld Him whom I love. In the embrace and in the fullness of grace, I am seen. Better still, I am beheld by the first of the beholders.

Is this not the hope on to which we hold? Is this not the voice making supplications within our hearts? Is this not the joy of heaven for which we, the beloved and the beheld, so desperately long? Is not the communion of saints a handful of those devout people of God together looking and together seeing?

I envy so much those who, in this pit of shadows, turned their heads from the passing madness to face a light, and in thus following it, were better able to see. By walking in this light they imaged their Creator.

The things of God which so often remain hidden, veiled and unseen, were gazed upon. Grace had given them minds to ponder on the sacred mysteries. Grace had given them mouths to praise, and in union with angels they cried: “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus!” There, in the midst of praising, came upon them a sweet fragrance. It is the scent of souls, formed “perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect”.

How do we come to hold for ourselves the vision of God? When we look to the saints of the Church we see that grace had given them hands to labour. And so they laboured: putting robes on the shoulders of the naked, satisfying the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, sheltering the homeless, burying the deceased, and visiting the imprisoned — and all of this was done with love. In this way, they laboured, and with their oblations, furnished the dwelling place of God.

And when it came time for the sunset, they followed the light for the last time. They saw a glow and went closer, and leaving this world they saw “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…for in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:15-19).

Let us remember the souls of the saints who are seen by God. And in his infinite mercy, they see him too.