It was the first day on the job for the new, young optometrist. The boss, the head optician, was explaining how the office worked. “When customers come in for a pair of glasses, first you examine them. Then you show them some frames.”

“But there are no prices on the frames,” said the new optometrist.

“Exactly,” said the boss.  “When customers find some frames they like, they’ll ask you how much the frames cost. You say €200.’ Then you wait a minute. If there’s no objection, you add, ‘And the lenses, of course, are €150.’ Pause a moment and if there’s still no objection, you say, ‘Each!’”

How much can I get away with?  How far can I go without getting caught?  For some people that’s the bottom line for all decision making, the only question that really matters.  And for almost all of us, it’s a question we still do ask – at least sometimes.  It’s a way of looking at the world that shows its ugly face in comments like, “She’s 2000 miles away, and she’ll never find out.”  Or “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”  Or “I’ll be long gone, before they find the body.”  Or  “It’s okay, nobody’s looking’.”

How much can I get away with?  What’s the least I can do without getting in trouble?  Sounds like the formula for an easy, laid-back life, doesn’t it.  But it’s not.  In fact, it’s a guaranteed, sure-fire formula for sadness, because it goes contrary to our deepest desires namely, our unquenchable thirst for communion, our longing for friendships in which there are no hidden closets and no unshared gifts.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus looks at the Ten Commandments and says quite simply, they’re fine, but they’re not enough.  If you really want a happy life, he says, you’ve got to go beyond those rules, because they only look at things from the outside.  The inside of things is what you need to see and respond to.  Look and listen carefully to each person, each creature, each thing that crosses your path, he says, because each of them has a message for you. And the message is always the same: “I am God’s good creature,” says each one. “Take good care of me.”

That is the silent message that I believe Jesus is asking us to hear from every person we meet, from every creature that crosses our path, and from every piece of the earth we touch.  “I am God’s good creature.  Take good care of me,” say they all.

If we listen with our hearts to the inside of each of God’s creatures, we’ll always know how to respond to them, and we’ll have the heart to respond – with reverence and care and graciousness.  And our heart’s deepest desire, our longing for communion, will begin to come true, because to each of God’s creatures we will have given not our least but our best – from the heart!