An often-cited quote from Dale Carnegie: “Two men looked out from prison bars. One saw the mud, the other saw stars.” It touches on the complex business of how we see things – or to use Jesus’ word in Luke’s gospel (12:56), how we interpret, how we take in what is there in front of us.

As Christian believers, we’re challenged to take on The Lord’s interpretation, to strive to see things through his eyes and feel things with his heart.

As an instance, sometime in 17th Century Paris, a crowd of people are standing on a high balcony overlooking the slums of the city. Some are from the nobility, others are ordinary citizens, and then there’s Louise de Marillac and Vincent de Paul. What did each group see?

Perhaps a bit unfair to the nobles, but more than likely they saw trouble, a blotch in their beautiful city, a nest of criminals and ladies of the night. The citizens? Perhaps a lot of buildings in disrepair.

What of Vincent and Louise looking out at the same neighborhood? How differently they take in the scene. For them, it’s a zone of destitute people in need of shelter, clothing, food – and acceptance. More directly, they see very poor people who are loved by God, indigent families who have the mark of Jesus Christ on them and within them.,

Same vista but different interpretations, same scene viewed through very different lenses.

How do these contrasting “takes” come about? Various factors enter in, but there’s one in particular: the degree to which each had taken in the outlook and instincts of Jesus Christ. The extent to which they opened themselves to His message about the special place the down-and-out occupy in His Father’s Kingdom.

The question: how did this vision come to influence you as a member of the Vincentian Family? How did this gospel lens of noticing and valuing in the needy come to fit over your eyes? How has it led you to see the world differently, to be in sync with those two people looking down from that 17th Century balcony? Can you recall the stages of your developing such a gospel interpretation of the world around you?

Your absorption of Louise and Vincent’s take on the world could have happened gradually, or perhaps in an instant. Can you look back to different instances when it took hold, different stories you could tell about the ways in which their vision came to settle over yours? It’s a worthwhile exercise to look back to the changes that seeped into your world view because you opened yourself to their imbibing of Jesus’ “interpretation” of how things are, and how they should be.