Through the eyes of Christ

Last summer a friend and I went to St. Louis, Missouri for a Cardinals baseball game. The game was on a Saturday afternoon. We drove to St. Louis on Friday night and got up Saturday morning and went to Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. After Mass we hung around and had a look at the Cathedral Basilica. We then left to go check out the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, also known in St. Louis as the Old Cathedral. On our way we passed by St. Francis Xavier Church near the campus of St. Louis University. We decided to stop and see if it was open. We went in and the nave was mostly dark. There were only a few lights in the sanctuary. I'm not good at using my camera in low light situations but decided to take a photo from the back of the church anyway. We where reading some of the information in the front of the church when a man, whom I hadn't seen before, came out of the nave and started talking to us. I can't remember the details exactly but I believe his story involved a sick child and he asked us if we had any money that we could give him. We each gave him a few dollars from the little cash we were caring and went on our way.

I thought that if he was just waiting around for a chance to bum money from unsuspecting strangers that a dark church would be a weird place to hang out. In any case I offered up a short prayer for this man.

Later, when I downloaded my pictures to my computer I was somewhat surprised by what I saw in this photo. There he is, head bowed seemingly in prayer, sitting in the back pew of a dark church with only the altar illuminated. The light in the rest of the church and the fuzziness is caused by the night/low light setting on my camera.

I just ran across this photo again. I'm somewhat glad that it turned out blurry. I think it's a good reminder that our view of the world is often distorted and we must strive to view all things though the eyes of Christ.

For more pictures from my trip to St. Louis click here