God Sees You
He sees you because he loves you
In the
Turin city in the 19th century, among the multifarious kinds of
boys, the oratory boys of Don Bosco stood out in everything especially in
leading a virtuous life. The salient reason behind this success was pious
customs of the oratory and one among them was the Goodnight Talk before going to bed which is faithfully practised
even today in the Salesian houses. In most of the goodnight talks the prominent
counsel that Mamma Maragret, mother of Don Bosco, gave was, “God sees you!” the
boys took those words so fervently that they always felt the sight of God in
their own lives. This maxim is passed on to this day as a tradition. One can
find this phrase almost in all the Salesian houses somewhere or the other.
Though it
fascinates in the beginning, due to the lack of consciousness of the meaning of
the sentence it turns into a mere cliché. Moreover, one can even question its
meaning. The general understanding of this sentence that comes to our mind
would be – God sees our every action and so He will punish us when we do wrong
or you can cheat men but not God. It cannot be the apt meaning for this phrase
as we are aware that God is love. The lovable God does not look through
microscope to keep the score of every wrong that we do. There must be another
meaning latent in the phrase. The following story can help us understand that
meaning better.
Once a
little boy went to visit his grandmother’s house. He enjoyed looking at the
beautiful pictures and attractive things in the granny’s house. At a certain
point he was intrigued to look at a white board on a colourful wall. He was
standing there for a long time with a deep thought. Looking at the strange
gesture of her grandson, the old woman came to the boy and noticed his
curiosity on the white board with these words, “God sees you.” Reading the
thoughts running in the mind of the little lad she told him, “My dear Tom, so
far you have been looking at the pictures and they were pleasing you because
they are good. But now you are aware that God is looking at you. You also
please him as long as you are good.” “But what will He do if I do wrong?”
interrupted the boy. The pious woman replied, “Instead of asking what He will
do to you, ask what you will do Him when you do wrong.” The boy remained
silent. “Remember”, she continued, “Whenever you do wrong, you hurt the one who
loves you more than anybody else. He always sees you, because he loves you.”
The
latent meaning is clear now. Probably, Mamma Margaret and Don Bosco might have
meant this hidden meaning as they advised the boys, “God sees you.” Consequently,
whenever the boys were tempted to do any mischief they would promptly remind
themselves, “Don Bosco would not like that.” Don Bosco was always practicing from
his boyhood. It so happened once that when he and his brother, Joseph were
playing, a stranger tempted them to steal, they answered him, “Mamma won’t be
pleased with that.” It is not merely pleasing but esteeming the person whom we
love. This esteem reaches its peak with the love of God. Because God’ love is
Love par excellence. He assured this through the prophet Isaiah, “Never! Can a
mother forget her little child and not have love for her own son? Yet even if
that should be, I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms
of my hands.” (Is. 49: 13-16). Hence we are in great disturbance when we hurt
this everloving God by our sin. The scripture says, “Fear is the beginning of
the wisdom” and “not the end”, G.K. Chesterton completes it. This fear cannot
be the fear of punishment, on the contrary, the fear of offending the goodness
of a person who deserve our love or reciprocate our love. In fact, in the
traditional act of contrition we pray, “I detest all my sins because they
deserve your dreadful punishments… but most of all they offend Your Infinite
Goodness.”
The only
solution for this dilemma of pleasing or hurting is love as “it does not
rejoice in wrong doing” (1 Corinthians 13:6a). Where there is love there is no
hurt as St. Augustine urges, “Love and do what you wish.” God sees us not
because He is omnipresent but He is everloving. He sees us because He loves us.
