Through contemplation, we come to see reality as it really is. By surrendering to Divine Presence, we share in the vision of God, as our Beloved looks with God’s eyes in and through us.  As Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart put it, “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” Looking through God’s eyes, we recognize every created thing as infused and inseparably intertwined with the Divine Presence.

It must have taken deeply contemplative eyes to recognize the first Christmas for what it was: only contemplative eyes could have recognized the long-awaited Messiah in the poor Jewish baby laying in a manger (the fact that the first people outside of the Holy Family to have this recognition were simple shepherds should tell you everything you need to know about what’s required for the contemplative life). Where have you been able to “see with God’s eye” and recognize the Divine Presence in your life – in the face of your own child perhaps, the grandeur of the night sky, or in a simple act of kindness? Let us be thankful for the ways in which “God With Us’ is revealed to us this Christmas season.