Reflection - 44 

Dear friends

There is a famous book called “well springs” which is written by Anthony De Mello. In one of the sections of that particular book he asks a question “If Jesus were to come back to the world today what would he look at first?” it is really an interesting question. On hearing this question we may have many answers to give such as Mother Mary, His disciples, the sick and the poor and some may even suggest that he may look for those who crucified Him.

But De Mello gives a different twist to the answer. He says “I imagine that what first attracts His notice is the overwhelming goodness in humanity. The good hearted person sees goodness everywhere; the evil hearted person sees evil everywhere, for we tend to see in others the reflection of ourselves”.

When we ruminate over this particular thought we understand the one basic difference between Jesus and us. Jesus sees goodness in all the places and in all the people even if there is a lack of goodness. In the gospel we see many incidents where Jesus found goodness in those people who the public had labeled as evil. We see Jesus looking through the heart of Levi the tax collector and see the goodness which was hidden in him. His compassion filled eyes see the week point of the sinful woman. At the end His look at the thief on the cross beside him makes the thief repented. In all these incidents Jesus found out the hidden goodness in them.

Now let us reflect about our own life. Do we ever look for the hidden goodness in others than looking for the evilness or faults in them? Almost all of are inclined to find out the shortcomings of others even if they are filled with goodness and we criticize them for the same. If we analyze our day to day life we may come to know that there won’t be any day in which we haven’t criticized others at least once for their drawbacks, but there may be days in which we have not found any good in others. Whenever we look at a person we tend to see the reflection of ourselves in them. Hence it is certain that we are filled with evil if we find out only the evilness in others, whereas if we are able to find out some goodness in others it shows that we are good hearted.

So my dear friends, at this moment let us take a decision that hereafter we will try to find out something good in others and encourage them rather than criticizing them for the evilness in them. In order to practice it, we should inculcate the art of looking of Jesus which was filled with compassion and love. So that all those people who becomes the objects of our looking may experience a comforting affection from our eyes.

Bro. Sibi Kurian