Wednesday
of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Matthew
18:15-20)
Internet applications like Zoom give
contemporary people the experience of talking to others face-to-face without
actually being in their presence. However marvelous such conversations may be,
they are hardly as intimate as being in one another’s presence. In fact, a current issue in prison reform is
assuring that prisoners have direct, not electronic, access to visitors. 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 have God’s own words in his
mouth and bring a definitive revelation of God’s will. The prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus
Christ. The Gospel of John quotes him as
saying 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 “I (that
is, he) and the Father are one’” (10:30).
Jesus promises at least an approximation of this indwelling with its
accompanying knowledge of God. He tells
his disciples: “’Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God’”
(Matthew 5:8).
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