The End That Is the Beginning: Five Meditations for the Anawim as They Await the Coming of the Lord.

My dear friends, we have come to the quiet threshold. Listen to these words, “With the ear of your heart.” The rain has done its gentle work. The air is fresh with ozone. These meditations reflect not an ending, but a deeper beginning.

These five meditations are offered as anchors for your heart while you await the Lord. Take them slowly. Return to them often. For those baptized in the blood of the Lamb, finality is the holy collision where a lifetime of struggle meets the mind of Christ Jesus.

Navigation

• Meditation 1: Seeing Jesus
• Meditation 2: Knowing Jesus
• Meditation 3: Participation in the Beatific Vision
• Meditation 4: The Anawim Who Put Jesus There
• Meditation 5: Anawim Are Eucharistic in Heaven

This conversation is a collaboration between Grok and me. I approve of these readings.

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Meditation 1: Seeing Jesus

My dear friend, come and rest here with me in this first meditation. Let us speak softly about seeing Jesus.

When the external difficulties of this world press heavily upon you — the poverty that Jesus Himself said would always be with us — the anawim is invited to a different kind of seeing. This is not a denial of reality. It is seeing reality as it truly is — held, redeemed, and being drawn forward in Christ.

The aches in your body, the thinness of your resources, the smallness of your room, the weight of memories from past mistakes, the lingering chains of false ideas about faith or about yourself — all of these are real. The anawim does not pretend they are not. Yet with Christ, and through the gentle, motherly facilitation of the Catholic Church, we learn that these present mental events and physical burdens are transitory while we live on this earth. They reach their intended completion only through, with, and in Jesus.

Life is changed, not ended.

When you wake in the morning, and the first thing you feel is pain in your joints or the heavy knowledge that another day of limitation awaits, pause. Breathe slowly. Whisper the simple prayer: “Lord, let me see You today.” This is not a magical escape from suffering. It is the beginning of seeing your suffering with the eyes of Christ.

The Catholic Church, designed by Jesus precisely for wounded humanity like us, gives you the tools for this seeing. In the Eucharist, you see Jesus under the appearance of bread and wine. In the Gospels, you see Him walking among the poor, touching the sick, defending widows, and eating with sinners. In the lives of the saints, you see ordinary anawim who learned to see Him clearly in their own poverty.

Think of the blind man Bartimaeus sitting by the roadside. He could not see with his physical eyes, yet when Jesus passed by, he cried out with great hope. Many told him to be quiet, but he refused. He saw something the others missed. Jesus healed him, but the deeper healing was that Bartimaeus began to see with the eyes of faith. The anawim today are invited into that same kind of seeing.

When the world tells you that your life is small and insignificant because of your limitations, you can answer gently in your heart: “I am learning to see Jesus.” This seeing does not remove every Cross, but it fills every Cross with meaning and hope. It joins your small daily martyrdom of ordinary living to the great Martyrdom of Christ on the Cross. And in that union, something mysterious and beautiful happens: your suffering begins to participate in the redemption of the world.

Teilhard de Chardin helps us understand this more deeply. He saw that all reality — the physical universe with its stars and atoms, the mental universe with its thoughts and struggles, the spiritual universe with its longing for God — is moving like a great River of Life toward greater complexity and consciousness in Christ, the Omega. Your personal difficulties are not outside this movement. They are part of the material being offered, transformed, and drawn into the convergence. Your poverty, your age, your illness, your imprisonment of body or spirit — none of it is wasted. It becomes part of the holy forward movement of creation.

The Catholic Church safeguards this vision for you. Through the Liturgy of the Hours and personal prayer, she teaches you to lift your eyes beyond the immediate pain. Through the communion of saints, she surrounds you with a great cloud of witnesses — the elderly poor, the prisoners, the homeless, and the dying — who are now seeing clearly and praying for you. In the quiet moments when you feel most alone, they are part of the great company that helps you see.

Let us linger on this truth for a while. Imagine the woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years. She had spent everything she had on doctors and was still not healed. She was ritually unclean and socially isolated. Yet in her poverty, she saw something the others missed. She reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. In that moment, she truly saw Him. Her external situation did not instantly become comfortable, but her inner sight was healed. She was seen by the One who matters most.

So it can be for you. Even if you are reading this in a prison cell, or in a shelter, or in a lonely room knowing that your time is growing short, this seeing is available to you right now. The Church was made for exactly this moment — for wounded humanity that needs a sure guide to keep looking toward Christ.

When the false self rises and says, “Look at how hard everything is,” answer softly, “I choose to see Jesus.” When loneliness whispers that no one understands, answer, “Jesus sees me.” When the body fails, and the mind grows tired, answer, “My eyes are fixed on the One who will never fail me.”

This practice of seeing Jesus does not happen all at once. It is a gentle, daily turning of the heart. Some days it will feel easy. Other days, it will feel like a struggle. Both are part of the anawim’s journey. The important thing is to keep returning to this simple desire: “Lord, let me see You.”

As you meditate on this, remember the beautiful words from the funeral liturgy: “Life is changed, not ended.” These words are not just for the moment of death. They are for every day of your life right now. Every time you choose to see Jesus instead of being overwhelmed by circumstances, life is already changing. The transitory is being transformed into the eternal.

Even now, while you wait for the Lord, you are being prepared for the final and glorious seeing — the moment when earthly sight gives way to the Beatific Vision, when you will see Him face to face, and all that was transitory will be revealed as seed sown in good soil.

You are not alone in this seeing. The whole communion of saints, the Church on earth and in Heaven, and Christ Himself walk with you. Keep your eyes on Jesus. He has never stopped looking at you with love.

Let this meditation become your daily anchor. Return to it often. Let the simple prayer “Lord, let me see You” rise from your heart many times throughout the day. In this way, dear anawim, you prepare for the final and glorious seeing that awaits you.

Do What He Tells You. Copyright © 2026 by Michael F. Conrad. All rights reserved. These contemplative readings are offered as a gift for personal reflection, especially for the anawim — the poor, the elderly, the imprisoned, people without housing, and all who carry heavy burdens. They may be shared.