“God’s view includes looking over our shoulder and loving us enough to see what we see. God meets us there. But then, God invites us to look over his shoulder and see what he sees—TO GO WITH HIM WHERE HE GOES.”

Mary Ortwein. "Looking Over God’s Shoulder." A Catholic Moment. February 26, 2022

“But our God has not ceased to cross our way. He is not yet done with us. At the appointed time he will, he will surely come to meet us on the road where we are lying wretched and seeking for aid.”

Fr. Lawrence Obilor. "The God of Restoration." A Catholic Moment. October 24, 2021

“the restoration of Israel was not possible without the restoration of the Davidic King...In the Gospel, we see Jesus called “Son of David,” the king to rule over and restore the twelve tribes of Israel.”

John Bergsma. "20/20 Vision." The Sacred Page. October 23, 2021

“Our scriptures, our Christian faith and our baptismal call all remind us that we will always have the opportunity, like Bartimaeus, to throw off our cloaks of blindness and learn to see God’s universal call to us to build communities of security, of justice and enough for all, to love one another.”

Fr. Ken Thesing, MM. "Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time." Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. October 24, 2021

“The Samaritan...was able to follow his heart and let simple human compassion move him...There was enough light for him to see that the face of the man lying in the ditch was the face of a brother, despite all that race, creed, and circumstance had placed between them.”

Ron Rolheiser, OMI. "What Is Religion All About?." ronrolheiser.com. November 1, 1998

“God truly sees the big picture, and while He cannot make our choices for us, He does bring good in any situation and is there waiting, prompting, loving. He provides the tools and the mercy and the grace for us to come back to Him, no matter our circumstances, no matter what we have done.”

Joseph LaCombe. "Seeing the Big Picture." A Catholic Moment. March 30, 2019

“Love of God, others, and ourselves is the big picture. But often it gets lost amongst the trees. Often love just slips away, and passes through the midst of the trees, just as Jesus slipped away through the crowd.”

Joseph LaCombe. "See the Forest." A Catholic Moment. January 31, 2016

“When Christ gives Bartimaeus his sight, he doesn’t endow him with a unique superpower, but restores to him something which belongs to his life as a human being.”

Fr. Gregory Pearson. "Seeing the Need for Salvation." Torch. October 20, 2021

"Most Christians, most preachers, who reflect on this Chapter reflect on the Holy Eucharist. They are right; John wants us to do so. All the same, we might ask why John doesn’t tell us plainly about the Eucharist in his account of the Last Supper. Perhaps it’s because he was writing for a non-Christian audience – he tells us towards the end that he wants his readers to come to faith in Jesus. Maybe he..."

Fr. Richard Conrad. "Looking Harder." Torch. August 17, 2021

"I have seen with my own eyes two people who have now been declared saints. One was Pope John Paul II in his popemobile in Glasgow, where he was taken round the crowds, who were in separate rectangular areas, rather like the crowd in the first multiplication of loaves and fishes in the Gospel of St Mark (6:39-40). So we all had a good view of him. The other was Mother Theresa who came to..."

Fr. Euan Marley. "Sometimes it is all about you." Torch. June 30, 2021

"This Sunday’s Gospel passage tells us of the physical healing of a blind man. The gift of sight. Yet it also sets out for us a journey of insight which the man undergoes as he comes into contact with Christ and which leads not just to his being healed of a bodily handicap, but to his becoming a full disciple of Christ, to his following Jesus ‘on the way,’ that ancient phrase for being a..."

Fr. Martin Ganeri. "Rabbuni!." Torch. October 24, 2018

"A man in white, the astronaut Yuri Gagarin, reportedly said: “I went up to space, but I didn't encounter God”. But had he listened to the two men in white who spoke to the men of Galilee, he could have saved himself the trouble of seeking God up in space. “Why do you stand looking [up] into heaven?” (Acts 1:11). As another man in white said forty days earlier on Easter morning, “he is not..."

Fr. Lawrence Lew. "Why Stand Looking into Heaven?." Torch. May 12, 2015

“This miracle was the first sign because it teaches us the first lesson. If you want to see miracles, you must serve.”

Fr. Euan Marley. "The Servants Knew." Torch. January 20, 2013

"“You can know a thing to death, and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.” So says the old preacher, Ames, to his son in the book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It seems to me to express a deep, and strange truth."

Fr. Peter Hunter. "Seeing in Love." Torch. August 5, 2012

"Why should Jesus be the one we should follow? Why should we place absolute trust in his voice among all the voices and noise we hear in our world? Why should he be the one equipped to be our Good Shepherd, the one to lead us to pasture? Our second reading proclaimed to us the promise of our ultimate goal. The glory of this final destination is something that escapes us for now. We cannot..."

Fr. Simon Gaine. "Sharing His Vision." Torch. April 29, 2012

"The character Bartimaeus leaps out from the pages of Mark’s Gospel and stays with us as we go on our way from Sunday to Sunday. He becomes a follower at the eleventh hour, just before Jesus finally enters Jerusalem, at a stage when those who have been disciples all along are beginning to lose heart. His story is told so that we may take heart, not just sitting by the wayside but actually following Jesus..."

Fr. Dermot Morrin. "Take Heart, He Is Calling You." Torch. October 25, 2009

“the visit of the Magi surely anticipates, symbolically, the possibility of mutual interest and exchange among the world’s religious traditions: opening the treasures of their wisdom even if going home by another way”

Fr. Fergus Kerr. "Wise Men came from the East to Jerusalem." Torch. January 6, 2007

“It was far, far more important that the man in the story followed Jesus than that he just saw other people and things. Following Jesus’ way, he saw far more.”

Fr. Duncan Campbell. "Believing is Seeing." Torch. October 29, 2006

"From time to time, probably, all Christians ask themselves, 'what would it have been like to have been in the gospels, to have seen Christ face to face?' Today we get our question answered. We came to know Jesus not by having met him during his life on earth. Rather we were introduced to him by reputation: those who formed us in the Christian faith told us about him. But just knowing things about Jesus..."

Fr. Benjamin Earl. "Seeing the Christ." Torch. April 2, 2006