Seeing Through

"You cannot go on "explaining away" forever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? . . . If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To "see through" all things is the same as not to see." (C. S. Lewis from The Abolition of Man)

Sometimes in our pursuit of understanding, we are trying to explain things, make sense of situations, "figure it out." What are we trying to see? Are we only seeing through something to see through what follows? Eventually there is an end to that and if there wasn't, it wouldn't be worth seeing through things at all.

In these days of Holy Week, we are met with the greatest contradiction of all time, the Cross. The cross finds its way into every one of our lives, but it doesn't look like anybody else's. Each cross is as unique as an individual soul, specifically tailored to that person's sanctification. Do we see through our cross to Who is on it with us? If we see through the transparent window of the cross, we will meet with the opaqueness of the garden of Heaven, which is to finally see God.

We have to make the choice to see. We have to want the garden, which often means going through the path to get there and finally reaching the rusty old gate that opens onto the expanse. You only find that out by taking the steps. Let us make this Holy Week with great fervor, taking each step along with Our Lord, on the royal road of the cross.