So we are coming off of summer vacation and heading back into school. Many of you have spent the majority of summer hanging out with friends and/or attending some version of summer camp. I also know many of you have  made a million friendship bracelets this summer and your wrists are decked out with them. I know for me those strings that I collected as bracelets from over the summer always reminded me of the great times I had with my friends and I wore those bracelets until they fell off of my wrist in a tattered mess.

Friendship is an amazing thing; it calls us into communion with the Lord and with each other. This type of communion is a form of service to each other. Friendship, at its very core, allows us the opportunity to see God present in each person that we encounter. It also gives each of us the opportunity to make Christ present to our neighbor.

When I think about this concept of seeing God in another person I am reminded of a line from the popular movie Avatar, “I see you”.  The Na’vi people use this phrase, “I see you” to symbolize a deep connection and bond that goes beyond the physical. This single phrase acknowledges the deep and authentic link that the Na’vi people had with each other. In our world when we truly “see” another person we see the face of Christ and we acknowledge the link we all have as the brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. For when we truly see our friends we are seeing  Christ and allowing our hearts to connect and be vulnerable with Him. From the beginning of creation God breathed His life within us. When God created man he created him with a body, mind and soul. When original sin entered the world that unity between the three was broken and our vision of the person clouded. We no longer saw the whole person but rather only parts of it. From then on, mankind has been working on trying to regain our original sight; each day is a new day to recognize Christ in the other person and to see the complete   person, body, soul and mind.

This is indeed a  great task, each day we are faced with many choices; God gives us free reign to do as we will. He gives us the  gift of free will. The choices that we have can be hard to make. The world tells us so many lies, but we were not made for the world. My question to you is do you want to join me on this journey of trying to see our friends as Christ sees them? The reality is that Christ says the journey may not be easy, but He will be with us every step of the way. What I am proposing to you is radical, life changing even. What I challenge everyone, including myself, from this day forward to do is to see with eyes wide open. Everyone in the world is crying out to be seen, to be loved, what Christ is asking of us is to see the way He sees us as a total and complete person chosen by love itself.  I want to see everyone from the smallest child to the forgotten on the side of the street to see each other not just as a human being but as a child of God. I propose that we strive to use the gift that Jesus gave us when the veil was torn in the temple; the gift to be able to see more clearly the world around us. When we strive to see as God does I know the world will change, one person at a time.