On the Journey To Seeing With the Eyes of the Heart
written by VICTORIA S. SCHMIDT
Let my hands heal thy broken body are words purposely placed near a broken crucifix in the Home for the Dying run by the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, India.
The story behind the broken corpus of Jesus is that a mentally ill person, in anger, took the cross from the wall and threw it at Mother Teresa.
In that instant, Mother Teresa picked up the broken Jesus and instructed one of her sisters to place it back on the wall with those words.
It was Mother Teresa who taught me to see with the eyes of my heart twenty- seven years ago, when I went to India to volunteer with her community.
Having been caught up in the busyness of life and building a career, I had paid little attention to the importance of seeing with the eyes of my heart.
I know today that I do not see clearly what is unless I am seeing through the eyes of my heart.
Mother Teresa taught with her own life that Christ dwells in every soul, that God lives within every human person.
In knowing this truth, I must see everything through the lens of my heart.
However, as with many spiritual truths, knowing this does not make it easy, and I struggle to live this truth.
On my journey towards seeing with the eyes of my heart, my prayer is to have the wisdom to know when I'm looking through the wrong lens and when I am indeed letting the eyes of my heart allow my hands to heal the broken world.
- VICTORIA S. SCHMIDT lives in Springfield, Illinois (USA). She has a missionary heart that has been formed by thirty years of missionary work around the world. She currently serves as Director of Theresian World Ministry, an international Catholic women's organization.
