Demon Eyes or Divine Gaze? Part 1
Author: Andrew Comiskey
May 30, 2022
‘I look upon you at every
moment with all the delicacy of My divine friendship, with an inexhaustible
mercy.’ In Sinu Jesu
A friend of mine described
the eyes of his drunken abuser as black and beady, snake-like. Those eyes bore
a hole in his 12-year-old soul as sure as the rape broke his physical
integrity. ‘Only the eyes of Jesus looking at me in love are more powerful than
his [my abuser’s] demon eyes.’ My friend places himself before the divine gaze
of Merciful Jesus all the time. His clarity as a man depends on it.
Gratefully, most of us have
not endured rape. But critical, leering, and shaming eyes over the course of
our lives bore holes in our confidence as male and female. Instead of
confirming us, rejecting eyes have accused us. Might we surmise that eyes shame
us more loudly than words? One fierce glance can divide a sensitive soul by
driving doubt into one’s emerging core.
The collective ‘face’ of
disapproval becomes a reason to look down and away from others; sadly, the
shamed predict rejection and begin to ‘read’ it into faces that have no such
intention. Psychologists call this projection; one sees a scowl or disdainful
look upon the blank glances of others. The shamed fulfill their own dismal
prophesy.
One slouches through
social settings and can experience almost excruciating anxiety over the
prospect of bad things ahead. Demonized under the gaze of demon shame! The
demon concurs: you are an outcast, an orphan, a passed over child. Shame
accuses our humanity, in contrast to the confirmation of our pretty good
offering. More than anything else, the demon seeks to bind us to the lie that
we trouble and burden people rather than make them better.
Wary of people, one escapes
to unrealities like porn. All pleasure, no shame. Except for the gnawing
conviction that this sensational refuge is now a prison. And poisoning one’s
vision of others altogether. Shame upon shame! The lust addict sizes up the
most holy and measures others’ value based on where they align with porn’s naked
gymnasts.
The shamed find no rest,
no bridge to the love that could be ours. Lust seals loneliness. Isolated and
accused by demon eyes, we become demonized and see others through a diabolical
lens. Hell-on-earth.
Jesus brings heaven on
earth. He encounters each of us as directly as He did the Samaritan woman. His
tender face-to-face exchange with her broke shame’s death grip. She looked
Holiness infused with Almighty Mercy right in the face and saw eyes that loved her.
With one look, Jesus replaced all the lustful, squinting, and arrogant eyes she
had come to expect. His gaze rooted and grounded her in love.
Place yourself before the
Face of Mercy today.
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