Above: Detail of a medieval stained glass window in Wells Cathedral, U.K. Photo by Father Lawrence Lew, O.P.
How is it that the Pharisees of today’s Gospel will “look for” Jesus, and are looking right at him, but do not see him? For as Jesus himself said in yesterday’s Gospel, “I am the light of the world.” (Jn 8:12) How can the world’s light fail to be perceived?
In order to see this light, one must look in the right way. Some, including these Pharisees, look at him from above, from their haughtiness and vanity which perceive him as a threat, and so they do not see. Others look at him from below, from the position of the sinner, like the woman caught in adultery, about whom we heard in Sunday’s Gospel. Those who look at Jesus in this way see him. To look at Jesus as a sinner in need of salvation is to give him an invitation to direct his merciful gaze to us. It is to uncover our wounds to him, that we might be healed. And those who are thus seen by Jesus are healed, as the Israelites were healed when they looked at the bronze serpent. (Nm 21:9)
This is the attitude of St. Dominic as he prostrated himself before the Lord, begging for God’s mercy for himself, for his brethren, for sinners. There was no self-loathing in such prayer, no guilt complex. It was rather the expression of his status as a creature, and a wounded creature at that, bearing his own wounds and his share in the wounds of the world. Dominic humbled himself before the Lord, and by doing so drew down the merciful gaze of Jesus not only upon the men of his time, but upon all those sinners for whom he prayed, including us.
Saint Dominic, most zealous for the salvation of sinners, pray for us.
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