July is the month of the Precious Blood of Jesus

  For Vacation Planning - August Meeting will be on the Second Sunday (8/13/2023)

The Eyes Have It
A Reflection by Fred Schaeffer, OFS

The basic component of social interaction is making eye contact. Failing to make eye contact may suggest you are shy, inexperienced in people relationships, or even rude or a bore. Making eye contact for an inappropriately long time can be perceived by some that you are aggressive and over-confident. For most people, eye contact is as natural as talking or laughing, and yet for others, it can be very difficult. Looking from one eye to the other can cause the other person to feel you are insecure. Avoid staring. Just look directly into the person's eye in a relaxed manner. Besides eye contact, it is also very important to listen. During the conversation, if you focus completely on what the other person is saying, you won't have to worry about making eye contact correctly; if you are truly listening, you will just naturally focus your eyes on their eyes. Remember that maintaining eye contact is how you quietly prove to a person that you are interested in what they're saying. It's a vital way to demonstrate respect. People who have bifocals may often be uncomfortable to stand too close, causing their eyes to wander.

Show Eye Magnetism. Try not to look away instantly when something else calls for your attention. This happens a lot, nowadays. If somebody calls you, don't look away as if you just got rescued from a boring conversation. Instead, slightly hesitate before looking at your caller. Looking away then quickly looking back is also a good idea. Remember though, important disruptions such as dangerous or priority interruptions warrant instant attention.

Smile with your eyes. Smiling with your eyes generates a more relaxed feel, needed for a nice casual conversation. Hostile eyes or false smiles tend to make uncomfortable conversations and the other person will probably try to end the conversation. (continued p.2.)

 Divine Mercy Fraternity gathers monthly, Second Sunday 2:00 PM (Apr-May: Third Sunday), St. Helen Church, St. Patrick’s Room in Vero Beach, FL 

(from p.1) I had a friend once who, to my dismay, would appear very controlling during his conversations with me. He would stare at me, come really close so I could smell his (bad) breath, and to make his point, poke me into the stomach, repeatedly, as he talked. That's no good either. That makes me very uncomfortable. I always felt relieved when he stopped talking to me.

Looking at God with the eyes of your soul ... that's a different story. That is the inner secret of your contact with the Almighty, communication that goes on between you and God when we pray and when we think of him during the day or night. It is the silent communication of love, of friendship. It is communication without words when a penitent succeeds, be it for a day, an hour or a minute, to please God totally. For some those are rare moments, yet for others they are the routine. Those are joyful people.

This relationship with God is somewhat like two married people. They sit in the same room, not really communicating but just being at peace with one another. Dad is reading the paper, and Mom is engaged in a knitting project. They are both content with each other even though they are silent. They are doing their own thing but they are together and there is peace in the house. Our Lord when he was on earth told us to go to our inner room to pray...for married couples, this "inner room" can be each other's company, too.

The eyes of the soul see and absorb, the soul is difficult to define and probably presents us with one of the most important philosophical problems. The soul may be defined as our conscience, our inner core, where we are animated. This is where we feel, think and will. Para. 363 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), says, "In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human person. But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man."

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  Divine Mercy Fraternity●Secular Franciscan Order●Vero Beach, Florida ● July 2023, p. 3

(from p.2.) CCC 365, "The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.” And in CCC 366, "The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection." The last quotation is CCC 367, "Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people "wholly", with "spirit and soul and body" kept sound and blameless at the Lord's coming. The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul. "Spirit" signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.”

What I'd like to stress is that the soul is immortal; until the final Resurrection, the form we will have if we get into Heaven is our soul, man's spirit. To put this in more modern terms, the soul is the link each one of us has with God, for our soul and God often speak the same language depending how we apply ourselves in our relationship with Him.

With the eyes of the soul, we see God is a very personal way, a way as none other. The soul is our "fingerprint" as it were, with God, and He knows us by name, a name only available to Him. God's love for us is unique and forever. Let us live our lives to merit this love in every way possible.

May God bless you and keep you!

Fred Schaeffer, OFS 
(8/14/2009, repub. 6/22/2023)

CCC: Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana

   Excerpt from Lumen Fidei Encyclical (Pope Francis). June 29, 2013

44. The sacramental character of faith finds its highest expression in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is a precious nourishment for faith: an encounter with Christ truly present in the supreme act of his love, the life-giving gift of himself. In the Eucharist we find the intersection of faith’s two dimensions. On the one hand, there is the dimension of history: the Eucharist is an act of remembrance, a making present of the mystery in which the past, as an event of death and resurrection, demonstrates its ability to open up a future, to foreshadow ultimate fulfilment. The liturgy reminds us of this by its repetition of the word hodie, the "today" of the mysteries of salvation. On the other hand, we also find the dimension which leads from the visible world to the invisible. In the Eucharist we learn to see the heights and depths of reality. The bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ, who becomes present in his passover to the Father: this movement draws us, body and soul, into the movement of all creation towards its fulfilment in God.

2013 - Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana 

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_enciclica-lumen-fidei.html

  Divine Mercy Fraternity gathers monthly, Second Sunday 2:00 PM (Apr-May: Third Sunday), St. Helen Church, St. Patrick’s Room in Vero Beach, FL 

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