What is a gaze? It is the window through which we form an inner image of the world.
But it is more than that. When we encounter a face that is grieving, afraid, or hardened, our gaze does not simply receive the other's emotions—it becomes an expression of our own response. It reveals the posture of our heart. Does it express fear of suffering? Does it remain indifferent? Does it harden? Is it touched by compassion—true compassion, suffering *with* the other? The eyes are mirrors of the soul.
In the letters we receive at Ombre e Luci, the question of others' gazes comes up again and again.
"My daughter suffers from a profound emotional anguish that doctors have been unable to treat. She eats constantly. She weighs more than two hundred pounds. She no longer has the courage to go out. Wherever she goes, she sees only scorn or pity in people's eyes. She cannot bear it. It is a vicious cycle. Alone and defeated, she grows larger and larger."
And again: "I am looking for a community that will accept me as I am, broken by the life I have lived—drugs, misadventures of every kind. I have no desire to go back to my family. The last time I faced my father, he greeted me with such fury that I ran away, perhaps for good."
There is also the gaze of those who do not see—those too absorbed in their own concerns. The wealthy Dives perhaps never even noticed Lazarus at his door, eating the scraps thrown to the dogs.
How many times, reading the testimonies and letters that reach Ombre e Luci, have we confronted this mystery of the gaze? How much would the problems of people with disabilities diminish if every eye held only welcome and friendship?
A father writes to us: "We go to ten o'clock Mass because there is always an old gentleman we do not know, but his gaze is always full of gentleness and peace toward our son Cristiano, who will not grow. Our family finds in his smile a measure of comfort and hope."
It is exactly so. Our gaze is an infinitely powerful and mysterious force. We can bring life or death depending on how we look at others. But there is no use trying to retrain the gaze, for it is nothing but a reflection of our heart.
Francesco knows this well. He is never fooled by the technical, mechanical smile of certain visitors, and he says: "A smile masks a hardened heart." Jesus tells us that it is from within the human heart that evil thoughts arise—malice, pride, slander, insult (Matt. 15:19). And it is also from the human heart that goodness and peace are born.
"One sees clearly only with the heart," Saint-Exupéry says, and he draws a box in which those who wish to see beyond appearances know there is a sheep. The gaze, in this deeper sense, is the discovery of the secret needs of the heart beyond a disfigured face or a mortified body. It is the simple and evident beginning of communion beyond all words, beyond all gesture. It is so true that when two gazes meet in depth, often, suddenly, the eyelids close. As the spring sun melts the snow, the warmth of the heart, through our gaze, can make fear disappear—anguish, the feeling of being different, of being rejected. To change our gaze we must first change our heart.
But who can change their own heart by their own strength? Only the One who created it can transform it into a heart like his own—a heart infinitely more human than ours. It has been his deepest desire since we were born, since he came to dwell in us through baptism and every time we receive him in the Eucharist. He waits only for our yes.
"Come and change our heart of stone into a heart of flesh" (Ezek. 11:19), into a heart of tenderness and humility. Come and change my gaze into one that gives life.