Show Us Thy Face, O Lord

Christmas begins to answer our longing for the sight of God

“Come to save us, O Lord God of hosts: show Thy face, and we shall be saved.” (cf. Ps 79:8)

For me, the most poignant verses in Sacred Scripture are the ones that implore the Lord to show us His face. The Divine Office for Advent is filled with this verse and response:

℟. Veni ad liberandum nos, Domine, Deus virtutum.
℣. Ostende faciem tuam, et salvi erimus.

(Come to save us, O Lord God of hosts: show Thy face, and we shall be saved.)

Ever since our first parents were driven out of the garden, God has turned His face away from us—or more truthfully, it is we who have turned our faces away from Him who is the ever-burning light, and even our best efforts to return are sorry and stumbling efforts, detours that He is pleased to accept as legs of our pilgrimage.

We are haunted by that divine face, the memory of which is buried somewhere so far down in our souls that it seldom comes to the surface yet pulls our desires more effectively than any gravity. As the original from which we are drawn—the one sitting for His ever-renewed portrait—the divine face shows us who we really are, contains all the beauty we chase after, promises the one rest for our innumerable motions. We were made to look like Him, and to lose ourselves in Him: “lost, all lost in wonder at the God Thou art.” And thus to find and to be found.

“My soul is athirst for God, the living God; when shall I come and appear before the Face of God?” (Ps 41:3)

We are made for that beautiful face: we yearn to see it even when we are not thinking about it. We almost catch sight of it as our life goes on, as if in a dream, or like a friend vanishing around the corner, or in a quiet church when the lights are off and the light through the windows plays on the pews.

Everything we do in our spiritual life should be for the purpose of allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal the face of Jesus to us, conforming our face (our eyes, our ears, our mouths…) to His in the process; the end is the blessed vision of God, “face to face.” If we remember this, we can endure all trials and difficulties. “Thy Face, Lord, will I seek, hide not thy Face from me” (Ps 26:8–9).