I grew up on the North side of the city of Chicago. I attended St. Peter Canisius Grammar School. The nuns who taught there encouraged us to stop in the church for a quick visit on our way home. I was like any eight-year old boy, always intimidated by the enormous triangle painted on the wall over the altar. It symbolized the Trinity. In the middle of the triangle was a huge eye which symbolized God looking at you. Rays of light emanated from the eye and the triangle. That huge eye was always staring at me.
One day when I shot into church for a quick visit, an elderly woman was praying her rosary and kneeling near me. She noticed me with my mouth open gazing apprehensively at the eye.
The woman came over and sat down next to me. She reached over and held my hand. Looking up at the eye, she said: “Some people will tell you that eye means that God is always watching you to see when you are doing something bad, so God can punish you.” Then she paused and looked at me. “I don’t want you to think of it that way. Every time you look at that eye, I want to remember that God loves you so much, he can’t take his eyes off of you.”
Wow! What a difference that meant to me for the rest of my life! God was in love with me, just like my mother and father loved me. I was the “apple of God’s eye!” Every time I went for a visit after that, I would wave at the eye and say, “Here I am God. It’s me. Thanks for loving me!”
