How many photos do you have on your phone? Hundreds? Thousands? What about videos you’ve saved but won’t watch again? Do you spend all day scrolling, jumping from one video to another, rushing from one plan to the next without being fully present anywhere?

You see a lot, but when was the last time you stopped to really look? Do you enjoy the sunrise, the crackling of a bonfire, or rainfall? We live in a saturated environment that, paradoxically, makes us incapable of contemplating by staying with one thing, stopping time, letting the reality before us seep in and challenge us.

Sometimes you go through life on autopilot. Technically, you see things: you see the landscape from the bus, your parents, your friends... but everything comes to you through filters. Not Instagram filters; but rather the filters of tiredness, prejudices, or the comfortable certainty that you already know what someone’s like before they even start talking.

There’s a story about someone who experienced something similar. He’d spent his whole life without seeing. Then, one day, everything changed.

The mud and the beauty

In the Gospel of John, Jesus comes across a man blind from birth. This scene is striking, because that man had never seen anything: no sunrises, his mother’s face, a flash of light... His world was darkness.

And Jesus doesn’t give him a theoretical talk about light. He could have performed the miracle any way He wanted, but He doesn’t do it quickly or theatrically. He takes his time. He bends down. He touches the mud. He makes mud with saliva and earth. And He applies it to his eyes.

Sometimes, God’s beauty is hidden in the mud. Jesus doesn’t hesitate to wade into the mud, whether it’s the physical mud beside them or the nitty gritty of the man’s life. He tells him to wash at the pool of Siloam and, that’s when the miracle happens: he can see again.

Imagine the impact. He can see for the first time in his life. Everything is new. It must have been a powerful experience. He goes from darkness to light, from seeing nothing to contemplating everything. He lets himself be surprised by reality, without the usual filters. This is the beginning of contemplation: learning to look at the people in front of you with new eyes, as if you’d just met them, without the complaints or labels you’ve given them over time.

Those around the blind man, however, are trapped in their own prejudices. They argue about whether it’s him or not and whether Jesus is a sinner because He healed on a Sabbath. They have eyes, but they don’t see the miracle. They only see the broken rule. They’re like someone who’s planning their response while the other person is still speaking, unable to look at another person without judging them negatively. And the Pharisees aren’t characters from the distant past. We all fall into that way of looking from time to time.

When was the last time you stopped in front of something — whether it was a person, an action, a situation, or a landscape — and let it challenge you without judging it?

The heart that lets itself be touched

Beauty is not an aesthetic exercise for highly educated people. Beauty is a path that leads you straight to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

This path begins with the simplest things: a sunset that surprises you between buildings, the sea, the mountains, snowflakes falling silently. Then in people: your family’s affection, a true friendship, a conversation that does you good, a person who loves you unconditionally. And at the same time, work done well, study lived with meaning, hidden service to others.

And, little by little, your eyes get sharper. You discover God in the Church, in prayer, in Holy Mass, in the silent presence of Jesus in the Tabernacle. Eventually you understand that all this beauty is an invitation, leading you towards Beauty with a capital B. It brings you right to Christ, who is God made man. In fact, it brings you into Christ, to his Sacred Heart, where you find the source of all love, all beauty, and all truth.

He is beauty itself, and He comes out to meet you in your daily mud. That’s what you discover when you learn to pay attention, recover your capacity for wonder, and start to see Him as a person with a heart close to yours.

Jesus seeks out the blind man after the leaders of the people reject him. He doesn’t leave the man alone in his new reality. He asks him: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The recently healed man, with that clean gaze he has just begun to use, asks who this person is. And Jesus answers very simply: “You have seen Him: the one speaking to you, that is He.” In that moment, the blind man not only sees the light of the sun; he sees the light of God in the face of Christ. And he prostrates himself.

Seeing and believing. If that’s how you want to meet Christ, the privileged place for it is in the sacrament of Confession.

Sometimes we see Confession as a heavy and very shameful task, or a list of failures that makes us feel bad. It’s fine to think or feel that. Other times, we see it in a positive light. Whatever vision you tend towards right now, why not try thinking about your next confession like it’s your very first time going to the sacrament? Try to rediscover the simplicity and freshness of your first confession. Let go of the filter of habit and the phrases you’ve memorized so thoroughly that you don’t even think about them anymore. Now, unlike your first confession, you already have the benefit of having experienced (sometimes emotionally but always through faith) how much best life is after the sacrament of Confession. Try going to Confession not to get it over with or because you know it’s a good habit, but because you want Jesus to wash your eyes in his mercy.

Imagine a smoky mirror. When it’s covered with dust, it doesn’t seem to reflects anything. We might even think it’s broken. But all it takes to make it reflect light again is a single cleaning. The problem wasn’t the mirror; it was what was covering it.

Something similar happens with the heart. Sometimes it hasn’t lost its beauty, but it’s been dimmed by layers of tiredness, sin, wounds or distractions. Christ recreates your heart anew and lights it up again.

As Pope Leo XIV invited us at the prayer vigil in Madrid: “Seek in your hearts this fire of God’s love. Jesus’s close presence is felt even in the moments of our falls, because Jesus does not abandon us.”

Confession is when the Lord cleanses the heart and you see the light again. You accept Him as your north star, moving the rudder of your life and giving you strength to open your eyes and see more clearly. You look Him in the eye and your heart is lifted to his Heart.

If you knew that Jesus was looking at you with love, what would you tell Him, from the depths of your heart?

Don’t wait to feel like it or for the perfect moment. Lift up your gaze, let beauty touch you, and allow Christ to restore your sight. The world needs people who truly see.