“Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: ‘Father…'” (Jn 17:1).
This is the predominant attitude of Jesus: raising His eyes to the Father. It expresses the very depths of His being, for He came into the world to do the will of the Father (cf. Jn 4:34). Nothing was more important to Him! His heart was at all time focused on the Father.
To understand Jesus better, we are invited to raise our eyes with Him to heaven, towards His Father and our Father (cf. Jn 20:17). These are the eyes of the heart, which are able to see God and to recognise His love. Jesus was always filled with this love. There was nothing that separated Him from His Father, and the Holy Spirit Himself is the bond of love between them.
When we raise our eyes to the Father together with Jesus, we ourselves are lifted up and introduced into the Heart of the Holy Trinity. We leave behind our purely earthly view and begin to see with the eyes of the One before whom nothing is hidden. In this way, His loving gaze finds more and more room in us.
Then we begin to see this world and people with the eyes of Jesus and the Father, in the Holy Spirit. We await his instructions and place ourselves more and more at His service. Jesus Himself teaches us how not to lose sight of the Father in heaven: by doing His will at all times.
Then, together with Jesus, we will consciously live under the gaze of our Beloved Father, knowing that we are always loved by Him with the same love with which He loves His only begotten Son. Every glance at heaven becomes a guarantee of this divine love, in the certainty that – together with Jesus – we have our home in the Father and live in His favour. In the Heart of Jesus, we hear the magnificent words of the Father:
“This is my Son, the Beloved; He enjoys my favour” (Mt 17:5).
If we remain in His love, these words will also apply to us.