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A Day With Jesus: Meg’s Chapter II
Being Seen

You are well documented by the four Gospels and much of Paul’s testimonials.
You were seen in Jerusalem, Galilee, Jericho, Bethlehem and in-between as you made many journeys in your public life of teaching, healing and be-friending the poor, the least and the sinners of every kind.


The healings were free-standing. You gave life back to the dead, health to the infirmed. The effect was astounding. All were amazed.

You did symbolic gestures quoting passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that provide a way to think about the reign of God now manifest in you.

You were seen. When I am seen and I halt and notice the gaze of the icon, the passing sister who’s on the way to church as I am. Most of my early hours each day in this monasteries is with no speaking. Usually conversations begin after morning prayers and mass. So, it’s after 9:00 am. But I’m seen. You are those eyes.

Some days in this house of 70 nuns there’s chit and chat by the coffee in the refectory, or at the reception sign out desk. Can I assume you are out there as well as in here?

Do I make enough effort to see you coming in my midst? Do I need to run ahead of the crowd and climb a tree for you to look up and see me?

And there was a man named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector, and rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, on account of the crowd, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he made haste and came down, and received him joyfully….. Today salvation has come to this house. (Luke 19: 3-6, 9)

It seems that all who had the necessary faith to see and to follow saw you. You looked up at this little man in a sycamore tree.

Today, this little retreat day with you I want to run ahead of the crowd and see you for myself looking at me. What a privilege to be in your Presence.

You invite me down from the tree and come to my house, dine at table with my sisters and me. I want to give away half of all I have and make amends to anyone I’ve harmed, but I notice your generosity just cannot be outdone. You come to my house, eat with me and bring salvation before I can even make the slightest gesture of conversion and reconciliation.

This profound day of salvation is so ordinary. I climb a tree, you look up. I come down. This ground beneath my feet is my new home, a resting place where I can be stout in heart, firm in faith and confident that no impression or words of the crowd can shift my eyes from the gaze of your own. I’m being seen. I’ll never be the same again.

This retreat day in your Presence I am being seen. I can now rest my eyes as there is no place to look away. There is no place where you are not. This profound rest, sometimes called contemplation lasts beyond this one day and into a lifetime. I have come down from my tree and you’ve come into my house.