To See Ourselves as God Sees Us

Today’s post is from Sr. Donna McGartland, a regular contributor to Bondings 2.0 and one of the authors in Love Tenderly: Sacred Stories of Lesbian and Queer Religious published by New Ways Ministry.

Today’s liturgical readings for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time can be found here.

What if?

What if I truly believed the words of today’s liturgical reading from Isaiah?  “You are my servant, through whom I show my glory.”  I am God’s servant.  Would I act any differently?  How would I treat others?  How would I relate to myself?  Would I respond with the words of today’s responsorial psalm? “Here am I, Lord.  I come to do your will.” 

What if God is calling me from my complacency? God, who formed me as a servant from the womb, is calling Me! From the womb, I am made glorious in God’s sight!  What if I really believed this truth? 

Would I see myself differently?  How would I walk and act knowing that God made me glorious? How would I respond to others who believe differently or who indicate that I am intrinsically disordered?  Each of us – queer, straight, LGBTQ – each person is made glorious from the womb in God’s sight! No one is excluded and all are welcome. What if all of us believed this?

Isaiah continues. “It is too little for you to be my servant. … I will make you a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” Not only am I made glorious, but I am a light for all, without exception. God’s glory is made manifest through my light. 

What type of light am I? Am I a lighthouse who helps to guide others to safety? Am I a flashlight that is more focused or a single flame in a very dark room? Am I as bright as the sun or moon, or dim as if apologetic for disturbing the darkness.  Through my light, however bright or dim, salvation spreads to the ends of the earth. What if I really believed this? 

Week after week, the scriptures affirm God’s faithfulness and love. In today’s second reading Paul tells us that we have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy. He does not put any conditions. He does not say that we will be sanctified if… we go to church, act a certain way or become a perfect person.  We are holy, made glorious in God’s sight; we are a light to the nations.  We have already been sanctified; we are called holy as we are today and as we have always been since conception unconditionally.

In the silence of my room, it is so easy to dream of how the world could be different if I saw myself as God sees me.  I can get caught up with thinking about how, if, together we could recognize the truth of God’s love and call, we could disarm violence and offer healing and freedom to those struggling. 

But, alas, reality is not a dream, and the world in which we live is often fraught with oppression and control.  My light quickly dims in the shadow of the world’s power. I question, “Am I really made glorious in God’s sight? Have I been called from the womb to be a light? And, if so, how can I do this when there is so much darkness?”

We just closed the Jubilee Year of Hope.  I recently heard a comparison between hope and optimism. Optimism believes that the present can be positively different if certain conditions are met.  It can be both realistic and unrealistic and is based on expectations. 

Hope, on the other hand, is a belief that something positive will happen even in the face of uncertainty or adversity. More than a desire for a better outcome, it is knowing that things will be different. It is realizing that the future exists in the present and therefore transforms our present reality.

We are people of hope. In this hope, we dare to believe Isaiah’s truth: We are made glorious from the womb in God’s sight; we are God’s servants; we are God’s light; we are God’s glory for others. 

Can we dare to commit, “Here am I, Lord.  I come to do your will?”

—Donna McGartland, OSF, January 18, 2026

The Word Goes Out: LGBTQ+ Scripture Reflections for the Liturgical Calendar: 

New Ways Ministry has created an archive of all of Bondings 2.0’s Sunday scripture reflection posts.  This resource can help pastoral ministers and other church leaders better understand LGBTQ+ faith and spirituality, and can help them prepare homilies and talks.  For LGBTQ+ people and Allies, this resource provides a rich collection for personal or communal reflection.

The archive is organized by each liturgical cycle/year, and also includes indexes based on feast days, seasons, and secular observances.

Another resource New Ways Ministry provides to facilitate individual and group reflections on particular scripture passages is our JOURNEYS series, a collection of discussion guides, video reflections, prayers and more.

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