When I was growing up, my best friend across the street wore glasses. I remember, as a kid in elementary school, feeling strangely jealous. For some reason, glasses seemed cool. Maybe by the late 90s, the “four-eyes” insult had lost its sting, or maybe I just thought they’d look good on me.
The only problem? My eyesight was perfect.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling. I wanted glasses. Then, sometime in junior high, the world began to blur. The chalkboard wasn’t as clear. I found myself squinting while everyone else could read just fine.
And I thought: Yes. Finally.
It was time—glasses time.
I still remember going with my parents to LensCrafters at the Fox Valley Mall, clutching my little prescription from the eye doctor who’d known me since I was born. I picked out a pair of sleek silver frames (none of that Spider-Man stuff in the kids’ section), and I loved them.
When I put them on for the first time, it was like stepping into a new world. Everything was sharper, brighter, more alive. The best way I could describe it was that it felt like I’d just installed plasma screen TVs on my eyeballs. (And yes, back then, plasma TVs were cutting-edge.)
It wasn’t that the world itself had changed…the chalkboard, my friends, my neighborhood were all the same. But I could finally see them clearly. It was the same world, but somehow I was seeing more of it.
The Will to Meaning
Lately, I’ve been reading a book that has stirred up some deep reflection: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. You may have heard of it; it’s sold over 18 million copies since being published in the mid-20th century.
Frankl was a psychiatrist from Vienna who survived Auschwitz and Dachau. Out of those horrors, he developed what he called the Will to Meaning—a way of understanding human purpose that stands in contrast to the Will to Power and the Will to Pleasure.
The Will to Power, from thinkers like Nietzsche and Marx, suggests that life is about accumulating control, authority, and dominance. We crave being right, having the last word, winning the argument. Whether it’s politics, work, or even family squabbles, the goal becomes securing our own little throne.
Then there’s the Will to Pleasure, Sigmund Freud’s contribution, the idea that we’re just creatures chasing the next fix, driven by desire and self-interest, not so different from animals moving from trough to trough.
But Frankl asks a hauntingly beautiful question: Isn’t there more?
Is there more to life than selfishness, vanity, and pride? More meaning in our work, our families, our spiritual lives than mere survival or gratification?
The Search for More
Karl Marx famously called religion “the opiate of the masses”—a comforting illusion for those who can’t face life’s pain. Many people today still treat faith that way. “Mom’s with the spirit in the sky,” we say at funerals, without much idea of who or what that really means. Heaven becomes a pious, but unrelatable, image: second star to the right and straight on til morning. God becomes a vague comfort, a cosmic safety blanket.
Blaise Pascal, the great French thinker, offered his famous wager: it pays off to worship God; if he’s real, then you’ll be happy….if he’s not real, then “who cares” because you’ll just be dead. But if you don’t worship him and he turns out to be real, you’ll be quite sorry.
Frankl’s question…”Yeah, but isn’t there more?…invites us to see with new eyes. Like putting on glasses for the first time, faith lets us see the same world, the same people, the same situations, but with clarity and depth we never knew were possible.
When we proclaim Christ as the King of the Universe, we’re not waiting for Him to become King someday. He already is. The challenge is that we haven’t yet surrendered fully to His kingship or made the decision to live fully in his Kingdom.
Each of us has idols on the thrones of our hearts—things we hope will fulfill us, at least for the moment. And yet, as those fleeting comforts fade, we chase the next “now.”
That’s why people lose themselves in politics or family feuds. It’s not that those issues don’t matter—they do—but they’re not ultimate. As Christians, we live in the tension of caring deeply about this world while knowing for certain that the world as we know it is already passing away.
This doesn’t mean we check out or stop caring. We pray “Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven,” and we mean it. But the invitation is to stop losing our peace and burning bridges over things that, in the grand scheme, have already passed away.
Remember my homily from the election season last year:
Donald Trump is not coming to your birthday party. Neither is Kamala Harris. Don’t destroy your relationships with the people who are coming to your birthday party over people who don’t even know you exist.
Either It’s True, or It’s All Fake
The search for meaning, when pursued earnestly, leads us to a crossroads:
Either Jesus Christ is who He says He is—the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the one who calls us from darkness into light—or it’s all fake.
C.S. Lewis put it plainly:
“Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord.”
There’s no middle ground.
So, either this faith of ours is true, or we’ve all wasted our time, and could’ve been at Ditka’s by now instead of sitting through Mass.
But if it is true, then faith is the ultimate pair of glasses. It changes how we see everything.
It calls us to be vigilant, to notice when we’re slipping back into the world of panic, power, and pleasure, and to return again and again to the grace of seeing as Christ sees.
Because if Christ truly is King, then every decision, every word, every act absolutely must flow from that vision.
Spending Time With the King
So much of following Christ comes down to this:
If Jesus really were the King of my life, how would I live right now?
The only way to answer that honestly is to spend time with Him.
Jesus is not an abstract idea. He’s a person who desires a relationship with you. Many of us wear crosses around our necks, publicly representing someone we’ve never met. To publicly represent someone with whom we hardly ever spend time is very difficult.
On my first day of seminary, an old priest named Father Boyle—God rest his soul—told us:
“If you’re not going to pray, pack your bags. You’re not going to last.”
And I’ll say the same to you.
If you want to be faithful but don’t want to pray, you’re not going to last. I’m talking about real, personally vulnerable prayer and not just rote Hail Marys or the prayers that treat God like a vending machine of favors; but true prayer, that deep, personal, intimate conversation that grows over time and becomes a source of life, joy, and peace.
Start simple. Pray the rosary with attention and love. Sit in silence. Spend time in the Adoration Chapel.
When I was in college, I used to go to the Adoration Chapel at Sts. Peter and Paul in Naperville. At first, I didn’t even know how to get in or what to do. I’d sit there, sometimes doing homework or texting my mom. Then, slowly, I brought a Bible. I prayed the rosary. I began sharing my thoughts—not with friends, but with the Lord.
Nothing dramatic. Just honest conversation.
And what came from that was peace.
That same peace is waiting for you. Here at Visitation, we have a chapel open 24/7. Walk in at any time and find the Lord waiting for you.
If you want Him to be King of your life, that’s where it starts.
Maybe it’s sitting quietly before Mass, fifteen or twenty minutes early. Maybe it’s bringing a book and reading until love stirs enough in your heart to speak. Just be there.
Because if we never spend time with Him, if we never ask for the grace to see as He sees, it’s no wonder the world feels blurry, and God feels far away.
Eyes to See
So I leave you with that same question Viktor Frankl posed:
Is there more?
Does any of this mean more than just getting by, chasing comfort, or grasping at control?
There are really only two answers.
Either yes, it means everything, because the Lord is part of it. Or no, there isn’t more, and we could’ve all been at Antico Posto by now.
It truly is that simple.
When I look out at you without my glasses, you’re just a blur—shapes, colors, sound, but no clarity. But when I put these lenses on and see your faces clearly, awake and alive, it makes all the difference.
That’s what grace does. That’s what faith does.
Can we pray?
Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe,
We love You and we trust You,
Even when we don’t understand You.
Be King of our parish.
Be King of our hearts.
Be King of our families and our workplaces.
Be King for all those searching for a kingdom not of this world.
May we find hope, peace, and abundant life—
Even here and even now,
In this life, in this town, in this parish,
With the people and the path You’ve given us.
And when you feel afraid—before a big test, or a difficult conversation—say this simple prayer that I love:
Jesus, King of love, I am confident in You.
That’s it.
The clearest vision you’ll ever have.
