Meditation for July 30, My Eyes

Have I a mastery over my eyes? The purpose of modesty of the eyes is by no means to force me to go about in a strained, arti­ficial and affected manner, but to help my interior recollection, to edify my neighbor and to habituate me to self-control.

Nothing is more helpful than to keep my eyes cast down, pro­vided I am not hypocritical about it, endeavoring to create the im­pression that I see nothing, whereas I manage to be well informed on all that happens. An unnatural constraint causing loss of peace and a fear of contemplating the beauty of things is decidedly not desirable. I can go to God by looking or by not looking, provided I do either in good earnest and in a spirit of praise and adoration.

Our Lord in the Gospel enjoins upon all the faithful to keep the eye single that all in them might be pure. Let me never forget that the first sin in the world was a sin of the eyes, a woman's sin, a sin committed by an almost perfect creature. I am not less. weak than Eve. Therefore, I must exercise a careful, wise and quiet modesty, a firmness that is both unyielding and pliable.

Only a glance is needed at times to compromise interior peace, to stir up a tempest in the heart, to unleash a temptation upon me. Who can tell to what it leads? Sin.

Watch, said Our Lord. One watches by keeping his eyes open, but vigilance often consists in knowing how to close them.

Should my eyes ever become for me an occasion of serious faults, I know the warning of Our Lord, rather pluck them out. That is His way of telling me vividly that for nothing in the world should I use such a gift of God to offend Him.

"O Jesus grant that I may use my eyes intelligently, loyally and courageously. Mary, I offer you in advance all my glances."

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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)