Readings: 1 John 3.7-10; Psalm 97/98; John 1.35-42
As children we were taught that it is rude to stare at people. And yet in today's gospel reading two of the heroes of the Christian story do precisely that. Firstly John the Baptist stares hard at Jesus as he passes by before telling his disciples that Jesus is the Lamb of God. Then Jesus himself stares hard at Simon, the brother of Andrew, when he is brought to meet him.
Why all the staring? Perhaps the idea is that it is early morning when John identifies Jesus, evening time when Jesus meets Simon Peter. In both cases the light would have been dim. Perhaps this is all it means, although it being the Gospel of John we hesitate to think that its significance would be exhausted by this flat and literal meaning.
Perhaps it means that it was through a kind of contemplation that John came to realise who Jesus was and through a kind of contemplation that Jesus came to see in Peter what he prophesied about him when he called him Cephas, or 'Rock'. Rather than glancing, John and Jesus are seeing. The same with the disciples who ask Jesus where he is staying, who follow him and then spend the day with him. They are not simply giving each other cursory glances, these men, fhey are rather attending to each other, studying each other we might say, putting energy into their looking, in order to see the person more profoundly.
What is asked of Christian disciples in the first reading can be included in the term 'attention'. To be a follower of Christ is to attend to our brother and sister. We know we belong to God by two things: firstly by acting justly (some translations say when we are 'holy' or 'righteous') and secondly when we are loving our brothers and sisters. Justice and charity are thus the identifying marks of the disciple.
In order to grow in these virtues we need to give attention to them, to their requirements, and to how we must act in order to practise them. One of the things we need to do is to keep our eyes fixed on Christ who is the model for all of our life, our teacher or formator. He certainly teaches us how to attend to others. We need to 'study', both ourselves and others, as well as the situation in which we find ourselves encountering others. What does justice require here and now? What does charity require here and now?
We live in a world that is increasingly fast in producing information for us but what is involved in the formation we need if we are to be persons of justice and charity? That takes time and experience, spending days with Jesus from morning to night, accepting the guidance of prophets and teachers, being ready to put into practise what we are learning by sharing it with others as Andrew tells his brother Simon that they have found the Messiah. And thus the church begins to be born, the community of disciples.
'Fissando lo squardo' is the Italian translation of the phrase 'staring hard' and it means literally fixing one's gaze on someone. It is what we seek in Christian meditation or contemplative prayer, that our minds and hearts, our 'inner eye', will be fixed on Christ, keen to learn from him and then to put into practice what we receive from him. And we do that not just by practising prayer, but by attending to others already in justice and in charity.
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