Just stand there. I love to look at you!
Homily originally preached
on October 24, 2021
There’s the story of a mother and her little daughter living in Trinidad ...that’s the southernmost of the Caribbean Islands ... off the coast of Venezuela, South Amer..
They were very poor and the little girl had only one dress, which her mom would carefully wash every night so the girl could wear it to school the next day.
And each morning as the girl got to the front door to leave for school ...
her Mom would ask her to stop and turn toward her for a moment.
And she’d say, “Just stand there. I love to look at you.”
Now you know, that little girl didn’t change that much from day to day.
And actually, she was wearing the very same dress every day.
And yet, her Mom still took great delight in just gazing upon her.
I’ve seen this gaze myself ... in a picture I carry with me ... my neice Janay & baby.
I call it “the Look of Love”!
How blessed that little girl was to hear those loving words come from her Mother each day, “Just stand there. I love to look at you.”
What I like you to contemplate ... is that those very same words ...
are being spoken to each and every one of us … every day!
By who? By God!
Yes, regardless of whether you’re blessed to hear those words from your Mother,
they are definitely being said to you by your Father ... your Father in Heaven!
God the Father looks down upon all His children and never ceases to say:
“Just stand there. I love to look at you.”
Think about that. Think about that when you’re having a good day!
Think about that when you’re having a bad day!
It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. God loves to look at us as we are.
How does that make you feel?
All of us long to be loved. And what we need to realize is that ... we are loved!
Yes, we are loved by our Creator, God.
He loved us into existence.
And as our Loving Father, He continues to love us in good times and in bad.
And His one desire is that we experience His love ... now and forever.
In our First Reading, the Prophet Jeremiah describes the tender, never-ending love of God saying, “Thus says the Lord: ‘I will gather them from the ends of the world … I will console them and guide them, I will lead them …so that none may stumble.
For I am a father.”
You see, God is our Father, and a very special Father He is.
For God is Love.
And if God is Love ... that means that all He can do is love!
Which means that God loves us when we’re good and when we’re not good.
God doesn’t love us because we are good. God loves us because He is Good!
God loves us in good times and in bad ... He just loves us!
So, His ongoing invitation to us is: “Just stand there. I love to look at you.”
Yes, no matter what obstacles we encounter in life, the one thing we can always count on is God’s love for us. God’s love never changes. He never gives up on us.
We’re the ones who give up on ourselves!
How many people there are ... that give up on themselves.
They see their imperfections, and they conclude that they are unlovable.
That’s not true. God loves us infinitely and unconditionally;
He wants us to trust Him and to come to Him for our every need.
In today’s Gospel, the blind man, Bartimaeus, cried out to Jesus passing by, saying,
“Jesus Son of David, have pity on me.”
When the crowds rebuked him, Bartimaeus, could easily have stopped trying
to get Jesus’ attention. He could have given up.
But if he had given up, he would never have regained his eyesight!
Fortunately for him, Scripture says that when the people told him to be silent,
“he kept calling out all the more, (saying) ‘Son of David, have pity on me.’”
It’s only because he persisted, in spite of his obstacles, that Jesus cured him and restored his sight. It was Bartimaeus’ persistent faith that saved him.
It was his faith in God that enabled him to be healed.
That’s what God is calling us to have … a deep faith in Him.
He wants all of us to trust in His love for us and
to cry out to Him as Bartimaeus did ... saying, “I want to see!”
And what does God wants all of us to see?
God wants all of us to see ... the wonder that we are in His eyes!
and to hear Him saying each day: “Just stand there, I love to look at you.”
Yet many people don’t look to God ... or don’t listen to God. So they give up!
Each day in our country 3,800 people will try to kill themselves, and 130 of them will succeed ... making suicide the 10th leading cause of death in America!
Each day thousands of people will turn to drugs or alcohol or sex to hide the pain of their despair. And in these ways, people throw themselves on the junkpile of life.
Perhaps you remember the TV commercial aimed at helping kids stay in school.
It had as its by-line, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
Well, God feels the same way. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. But even more
God’s given us our mind, our body, our soul and our purpose,
and He wants us to use them to their fullest potential for good.
His byline could be: “ A life is a terrible thing to waste.
But the Great Deceiver, who is the Devil, who is the Father of Lies,
is being all too successful today in getting people to think that all is lost ...
that they are unlovable, that they are worthless and purposeless.
It’s then that they need to hear the words of the crowd in today’s Gospel
when they told Bartimaeus, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”
God wants us to see ... that even when it seems
that everyone and everything is against us; God is for us.
Jesus wants us to appreciate how special and precious we are in His eyes.
There’s a wonderful book that has helped many in this process. It’s called:
“The Greatest Miracle in the World”, written by Og Mandino 45 years ago.
It’s a timeless book that describes the sad situation where a vast number of people in our world are so depressed and so despondent because they feel that they aren’t loved that they go and throw themselves on what he calls “the Junkpile of Life.”
The main character of the book is Simon Potter, a self-appointed Ragpicker.
A ragpicker is someone who searches through junk to see what he can salvage.
I remember how growing up in Chicago, there were always ragpickers going up and down the alleys looking in peoples garbage to see what they could find and use.
Well, Simon Potter is a Ragpicker ... of People. He goes in search of people
who have thrown themselves onto the junk pile of humanity,
and have sentenced themselves to what he calls “a living death”.
This is where people suffer miserable and unfulfilled lives because they feel unloved. They fail to see any specialness about who they are and so they wallow in their own self-pity and despair. And not seeing any way out ... they give up.
They actually sell out on any hopes and dreams they might have had ...
and they settle for the unhappiness that comes from living a living death.
Doing this is nothing less than denying their Creator’s love for them.
For, when people come to the conclusion that nobody cares for them ...
they deny that someone does indeed care for them … namely God.
God, who is love ... never ceases to say to each and every person,
“Just stand there, I love to look at you.”
Og Mandino, suggests that we actually heard God whisper these very words to us the moment we were born … and that’s why all babies cry ...
so sensational it is ... to know that God loves us so very much!
Og suggests that we didn’t believe God then ... and most of us spend the rest of our lives never coming to believe that we are ... the Greatest Miracle in the World!
What is the Greatest Miracle in the World? You!
We are not failures. We are the pinnacle of God’s creation
and we each play a vital role in His plan to build His Kingdom on earth.
In his book, Og Mandino chronicles the wonder of the human person.
He speaks of such things as our senses, noting that:
Our sight, the gift that was given to Bartimaeus ...
is the result of us having a 100 M receptors in our eyes.
Our hearing
is the result of us having 24,000 fibers built into each ear.
Our ability to speak
is like no other creature in the world,
for we human beings are able to calm the angry, uplift the despondent,
teach the ignorant and say the words “I love you!”
Are we special or what? Are we not a magnificent creation?
We have some 500 muscles, connecting 200 bones
and a heart that beats 36 M times per year.
Our brain is the most complex structure in the universe,
with 13 B nerve cells to file away
every perception, every sound, every taste, every smell, every action
from the day of our birth.
And most importantly of all,
every Human Being is made in the image and likeness of God!
So, never allow the forces around you cause you to lose heart and give up.
Always have the persistence of Bartimaeus ... and call out for Jesus every day.
And like Bartimaeus, ask Him; “Lord that I may see!”
That I may see how special I am to You & never throw myself on the junkpile of life
That I may see my true role in your plan and have the courage to live it fully.
That I may see the miracle of my being and treasure your many gifts.
Lord, that I may one-day see your loving gaze in Heaven and rejoice to hear You say:
“Just stand there, I love to look at you.”
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