You never see a thing by looking at it. That is one of the most subtle and profound lessons that life is constantly striving to teach us. There are two ways of seeing everything. You may see it sacerdotally or you may see it sacramentally. You may see it sacerdotally—seeing, that is to say, the thing itself, but seeing nothing through it or beyond it. Or you may see it sacramentally—scarcely seeing the thing itself, but seeing a world of wonder as you look through it. You never see a thing by looking at it; you only see a thing by looking through it. Let me be more precise.  

   I hold in my hand a telescope. I draw it out; I close it up; I admire its highly burnished brasses, its beautifully polished lenses. That is one way of admiring a telescope but it is not the best way. The best way is to tuck the telescope under your arm, and set out for some green hill or tall tower. Then put the telescope to your eye. You will not see the telescope; but you will see a thousand things that, but for the telescope, you could not have beheld. And you will form a more just estimate of the value of the telescope by looking through it than by looking at it…

   Life’s richest revelations come, not by looking at things, but by looking through them. That was what Jesus taught concerning His Church. She exists, not to attract attention to herself, nor, as an ultimate end, to attract men to herself. Like the telescope, she exists, not that men may look at her, but that they may look through her; and her office is fulfilled so soon as men have fastened their eyes upon those redemptive sublimities that it is her stately prerogative to reveal.  

The Tide Comes In - F.W. Boreham