you are precious to my eyes

Cloister at Los Arcos

"....Vanier learned to befriend weakness not just in others but in himself.
'Let's stop running away from ourselves and from the deepest parts of our beings,'
he encouraged people on retreat.
'Let us simply stop and start listening to our own hearts.
There we will touch a lot of pain.
We will possibly touch a lot of anger.
We will possibly touch a lot of loneliness and anguish.
Then we will hear something deeper.
We will hear the voice of Jesus;
we will hear the voice of God.
'I love you. You are precious to my eyes and I love you.' "

~ From America Magazine: Jean Vanier's Gift for Living
By Carolyn Whitney-Brown, December 22, 2008

Walking from Le Puy, for the first three weeks I mostly walked alone,
lots of time to think and reflect.
I cannot now be sure, whether it was during those weeks or later on,
but the phrase "you are precious to my eyes and I love you"
took hold of me several times, very deeply
and there was a certainty about it.
I am a very lapsed Catholic,
but at those times I knew, completely, I was enveloped in Love.