Wednesday, August 11, 2021

 Memorial of Saint Clare, virgin

 (-; Matthew 18:15-20)

Internet applications like Zoom and Facetime give the impression of talking face-to-face without actually facing the other. However marvelous such conversations were during Covid lockdowns, by now they have become wearisome. In the first reading today, Moses is exulted for having known the Lord “face to face.” But what do these words mean and how do they compare with Christian belief that Christ saw the Father?

Various interpretations of the words are given.  Some say they do not indicate a direct encounter with the Lord because in the Book of Exodus God tells Moses that “’no one shall see me and live’” (33:20).  Of course, there is also the very real question of God, a purely spiritual being, having a material face.  It is best to conclude that Moses enjoyed a spiritual intimacy with God like no one else before the writing of the Book of Deuteronomy. 

 At one point in Deuteronomy Moses himself mentions another prophet who will come after him.  This prophet will speak God’s very words that will result in definitive revelation.  We find fulfillment of this prophecy in Jesus Christ.  The Gospel of John quotes him as saying, at least indirectly, that he has seen the Father: “’Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father’” (6:46).  His seeing of the Father constitutes a knowing that goes beyond Moses’ spiritual intimacy.  It is a divine indwelling whereby as Jesus again says in John: “(He) and the Father are one’” (10:30).  An approximation of this indwelling with its accompanying knowledge of God is what the Beatitudes promise to St. Clare and other disciples of Jesus through the ages: “’Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God’” (Matthew 5:8).