Your Face

Seeing our own face in the Face of Jesus

06/13/2019

2 Corinthians 3:15—4:1, 3-6 Brothers and sisters: To this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over the hearts of the children of Israel, but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit. Therefore, since we have this ministry through the mercy shown us, we are not discouraged. And even though our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled for those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that they may not see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Jesus. For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.

There are few things on earth as fascinating as the human face. When I was a little boy I loved to draw and I could depict a decent pastoral scene with landscape, mountains, trees, birds a pond with ducks on it. But when I tried to paint a human face, it looked like a Mr. Potato Head. There’s always more to a face than what we see on the surface. That’s why poker players work hard on their “poker face,” so other players cannot read any expressions on their face. They know the features of a human face are highly suggestive and can reveal as much as they conceal in a raised eyebrow, a subtle smile at the corner of the mouth, rapid blinks of eyelids, and so forth.

Who can stop looking at a baby’s face? Parents and grandparents love to share pictures of their baby’s face, and are convinced their child is the most beautiful boy or girl in the whole world. And to them, they are right. Lovers look longing into each other’s eyes and want to kiss the face they love. It is said that Helen of Troy was the most beautiful woman who ever lived and had, “the face that launched a thousand ships,” sparking the Trojan War immortalized in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Who can forget the haunting lyrics of the song by Roberta Flack, “The first time ever I saw your face / I thought the sun rose in your eyes / And the moon and the stars / Were the gifts you gave / To the dark, and the endless skies, / My love.” There is always more to the human face than we can catch in a sketch, in a story, or in a song.

In the first reading from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, the great Apostle tries to paint the face of Jesus with his pen and prose. He writes: “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.” In other words, if the human face is fascinating and defies description, how much more so the divine face of Jesus Christ. In a human face – like a baby’s or a beautiful woman’s – we see shining an immortal soul. But in the divine face of Jesus we see shining the glory of the immortal God.

But I believe in seeing Jesus’ face we also get to glimpse our own face for the first time, like looking in a mirror, and what we see isn’t very pretty. When Peter meets Jesus for the first time, he exclaims: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). When the Beloved Disciple, John, sees Jesus in Revelation 1:17, he doesn’t run up and give Jesus a bear hug. Rather, we read: “When I caught sight of him, I fell down at his feet as though dead.” When the great apostles Peter and John see the face of Christ reflecting the glory of God, they immediately see their own sinfulness and their need for a Savior. No one can keep a poker face with Jesus; he sees right through us.

My friends, how do you feel about your face? Sometimes people worry about wrinkles on their face and feel they are growing old. Some people turn to plastic surgery to keep their faces looking young. I always feel a little sad about that because people lose some of their God-given beauty. In some cultures it is disrespectful to look straight into another person’s face when you speak with them; you should lower your eyes and look at the floor. I always have to make an effort to look someone straight in the eyes when I talk to them, because I get nervous and forget what I’m saying. But I know I should look at the person I am addressing.

May I suggest, however, that instead of fumbling around with human faces – our own face or that of others – we spend more time staring at the lovely face of Jesus? The best way to see the divine face is in his sacraments, especially at Mass, and in Eucharistic Adoration. Archbishop Fulton Sheen once compared seeing Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament to gazing at the sunset. He said that the longer you look at a sunset, the more your face begins to glow with the glorious colors you behold in the sun. Hence, St. Paul wrote in the same letter to the Corinthians: “All of us, gazing with unveiled faces on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.” And that’s true, even if you look like a Mr. Potato Head.

Praised be Jesus Christ!