1 January 1990
Paris, France

Mother Duzan, Father Lloret and my dear Sisters,

Shortly before Christmas a Sister Servant wrote to me and in her letter she described some of the apostolates of the Sisters of her community. Among the poor whose lives were being touched by the love of the Sisters was an alcoholic man, Peter, who had been struggling to be cured of his weakness. Speaking to the Sisters on one occasion, Peter said: "If I have tried to change, it is because one day someone looked on me differently." Very likely Peter--as so often happens to alcoholics--was acutely aware that in his weakness he had lost much respect for himself and had also forfeited the respect of his family and friends. Then someone entered Peter's life who, to use his own phrase, looked on him differently. Someone succeeded in seeing more in Peter than his particular weakness, and succeeded, too, in transmitting lovingly to Peter the message that he could be different. That experience gave Peter the courage to begin to change.

Reflecting on the Sister Servant's letter in the days before Christmas, I found myself saying, "Is that not the story, too, of the Incarnation?" For is not the mystery of the Incarnation the story of how God at a point in human history began, as it were, to look on humanity differently. From the moment when Mary gave her consent at the Annunciation, God began to look differently on the humanity which He had created. Just how differently God looks on humanity since the Incarnation becomes clear by simply contrasting the experience of Moses on Mount Sinai and the experience of the shepherds and the Magi, as they drew close to the pathetic weakness of a God Who was an infant nestling in the arms of the Virgin Mary. In their wildest dreams, the people of the Old Testament did not think that the Messiah, Who would come, would be the person of God Himself. Even if they did, they could hardly have imagined that God would have chosen to be born of a Virgin and should make His entry into the world in such a humble and natural way. For us who live after the event, our minds will never penetrate to the depths of the mystery that the God who made the stars, could lie behind a pair of human eyes and reach out with infant hands to the mother who nourished Him. A mystic poet expressed the wonder of the Incarnation when he wrote:

(F. Thompson, Ex ore infantium).

God certainly looked differently on humanity when He began to look at it through the eyes of an infant, who would grow up to be that man who would look on the crowds with compassion because they were hungry, and who would be deeply distressed by the many faces

of suffering which is the heritage of sinful and broken humanity. What can we say of God's way of looking at our weakness when He viewed it from the Cross? As He died, there was one man close to Him who could say with Peter, the alcoholic: "If I have tried to change, it is because one day someone looked on me differently." "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise. (Lk 23:43).

When God looked at humanity differently through the Incarnation, He was passing a vote of confidence in us sinful, fragile humans. Zacchaeus, Matthew, Peter, Mary Magdalene, Paul of Tarsus--all had deep experiences of God's vote of confidence. Each of them and a host of other people in the pages of the New Testament were changed when God looked on them differently through the eyes and person of Jesus Christ. There has been no century since then that has not produced men and women whose lives have been profoundly and radically changed through their experience of meeting Jesus Christ and of having firsthand experience of being looked at differently by Him.

We must put ourselves among that number, even if we do not consider ourselves to be heroic in the practice of virtue. For has not Christ looked at us and made us adopted children of His Father in Heaven? Does He not by His spirit abide in us and we in Him? Is He not through His Spirit the delightful and unobtrusive guest at all times of our souls? Is not His daily approach to us in Holy Communion a sincere assurance on His part that, whatever others may think of us, He sees us so differently that He surrenders Himself to us totally--body, blood, soul and divinity? Perhaps it is that, in these days when our attention and energies are so much directed outward, we can lose sight of the activity of God within the temples of our bodies. "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God"? (1 Cor 6:19).

It was a favorite idea of St. Vincent that each of us is called in our own particular way to continue the mission of Jesus Christ on earth. If so, each of us is called to look on every person differently, that is, to share with Jesus Christ the vision He has of each individual person. If we wish to try to change society and to better the conditions of life for the poor, then we must start out with the vision of Jesus Christ. It is through an ever-deepening personal partnership with Christ that we will most securely change society and be authentic servants of the poor. "Without Me," He has told us, "you can do nothing." (Jn 15:5). Acting in partnership with Jesus Christ, we will frequently discover that we release love when we reveal to others their own particular spiritual beauty.

This spiritual principle holds good also for life within our Community. During these weeks and the coming months, you will be focusing your thoughts on assemblies, domestic and provincial. In the coming months your minds will be centered on the topic: The Daughter of Charity in and for the World of Today. You will be giving much thought to and engaging in much discussion on how you can make your presence and service more effective in the world, particularly in the world of the poor. Let us not forget, however, that the first world in which we live is that of our local community. If we desire that the Company be a more effective force in the universal Church, then we must commence with our local communities, by bettering and refining the quality of the love we show to one another within the Community. A Sister's power for loving others will often be called forth in a new way when she receives a word of sincere encouragement from her Sister Servant or a companion. Each of us can say with Peter, the alcoholic, "If I have tried to change, it is because one day someone looked on me differently." We can, unfortunately, be very economical and sparing with our words of encouragement and commendation to the members of our community. It is an economy which is often motivated by feelings of resentment or of jealousy although we may be slow to acknowledge that we shelter such feelings in our hearts.

The Company will have achieved much if, over the coming months, each Sister comes to acknowledge in a practical way the presence of Christ in those with whom she lives. The work of your assemblies could be reduced to a challenge to look on persons differently, that is, through the eyes of Jesus Christ. Too often we lock ourselves into the room of our own personal prejudices and cannot look on people differently. We do not succeed in climbing through the wounds of Jesus Christ and peering out through His eyes on the world, on the poor and on those with whom by Divine Providence we are called to live our lives in community.