Bathed in the Light of His Face

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

(Matthew 5:3-10)

In the ancient monastic tradition, the goal of the Christian life was understood as being the invitation to share in the Beatitude pronounced by Christ: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” It is this vision of the beauty of the Divine Countenance which gave meaning to the lifetime striving of the monks and hermits of the desert, and which was the source and wellspring of all the other Beatitudes. This blessing from the words of Christ, situated as it is at the core or climax of the Beatitudes, casts its light both forwards and backwards—forwards to the blessing on the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and the merciful; and backwards, to the blessing on the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

In a word, the vision of God’s ineffable Beauty is the deepest desire of the human heart, and poverty, mourning, meekness, hunger, thirst, and mercy all prepare the heart to welcome this gift from Almighty God. And when this great gift is received in a heart that is pure, then it brings with it the great blessing of peace. This peace is the sign and seal of God’s presence within the heart of his beloved child—a child who has come to abide in the undying truth of the Father’s Love—and therefore becomes also a source of peace for their brothers and sisters near and far. As Saint Seraphim of Sarov said: “When one soul finds peace, thousands of others around it will find it as well.” There is such a thing as spiritual magnetism, which is invisible but entirely real, such that when one heart allows itself to be raised up into the embrace of the Trinity, the whole world is raised with it.

Further, when such a heart enters into the vision of God, into the purity of his embrace, then it discovers an unshakable stillness and serenity, which allows it even to undergo suffering and persecution in the likeness of the Savior and relying entirely upon his grace. And this serenity of love is not a gift for the individual alone, but also makes them a rock of strength and consolation for all the lost and lonely hearts within this world.

But can we really still speak today of the “vision of God” as the ultimate goal of human and Christian life? Haven’t we rather discovered that what really matters is fraternal love and active charity? The impulse toward contemplative repose in the embrace of God, toward the purity of loving vision, is often seen as old-fashioned, rooted in an ancient Greek philosophy not yet purified by the newness of the Gospel. Or it is seen as individualistic and criticized as a merely subjective spirituality that doesn’t take account of the solidarity that exists among all the members of humanity and our co-responsibility for one another. True love doesn’t consist in seeking the vision of God for oneself, it is said, but rather in spending one’s life for the good of others.

On the surface these objections seem plausible, but on deeper inspection they reveal themselves to be profoundly superficial. They are superficial because they place God, as it were, in the background; and instead they focus upon the initiative and activity of humanity, as if this were what is truly decisive. The innate human desire for infinite Love is therefore squashed down to the size of philanthropy, to the point where it is said that God is not found in personal prayer, but rather in love of neighbor. Not in praying alone to God do we find access to authentic love, but only in the faces of our brothers and sisters.

Now, we most definitely do find the face of God in the faces of our brothers and sisters! We most definitely can—and must—approach our loving God through loving others and being loved by them, such that Saint John can write: “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” And yet there is an inner flame that must be ignited in the heart, which is the condition for brotherly love to be truly and authentically Christian. The nature of Christian love is that it extends to the infinite horizon of God’s Love, for it is born from the bosom of the Trinity who has loved us first, and, in loving us, calls us to intimacy with himself. Only when our love opens itself to the infinite Beauty of God, as the only resting-place of our restless hearts, can it also open itself to the expansiveness of love for our brothers and sisters within this world.

In order for love to be intensely centered upon man, it must first be completely centered upon God, as John Paul II expressed so beautifully in his encyclical Dives in Misericordia:

I devoted the encyclical Redemptor hominis to the truth about man, a truth that is revealed to us in its fullness and depth in Christ. A no less important need in these critical and difficult times impels me to draw attention once again in Christ to the countenance of the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Cor 1:3). We read in the Constitution Gaudium et spes: “Christ the new Adam…fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his lofty calling,” and does it “in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love.” The words that I have quoted are clear testimony to the fact that man cannot be manifested in the full dignity of his nature without reference—not only on the level of concepts but also in an integrally existential way—to God. Man and man’s lofty calling are revealed in Christ through the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love. …

The more the Church’s mission is centered upon man—the more it is, so to speak, anthropocentric—the more it must be confirmed and actualized theocentrically, that is to say, be directed in Jesus Christ to the Father. While the various currents of human thought both in the past and at the present have tended and still tend to separate theocentrism and anthropocentrism, and even to set them in opposition to each other, the Church, following Christ, seeks to link them up in human history, in a deep and organic way. And this is also one of the basic principles, perhaps the most important one, of the teaching of the last Council. (n. 1)

How can we go about seeking to “link up” the focus on humanity with the focus on God, and to avoid setting them in opposition to one another? The Pope himself gives the explanation: only in the mystery of the Father and his love does the true calling of man become clear. In other words, we cannot understand ourselves unless we open ourselves to the loving gaze of the Father, who reveals to us, in this gaze, both ourselves and his own divine mystery. Only in knowing God can we know ourselves. Or even more basically, only in being known by God can we come to know ourselves—to understand ourselves as he understands us, bathed in the radiance of his love and mercy. And this being known by and knowing God—this relationship of reciprocal love with God—is the wellspring of authentic love for our brothers and sisters, who we can thereby see bathed in the light of this same love that comes from the countenance of the Father.

How beautiful is this connection between the human heart and the heart of the Father…which meet and become united within the mystery of a single Love! And this Love has become incarnate in Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son who is always in the bosom of the Father and yet has come among us to open up the Home of the Trinity to be our own dwelling-place. Yes, only Jesus Christ truly reveals to us who we are, for in his gaze we experience the loving gaze of the heavenly Father, and in him we see, united in inseparable unity, the mystery of both God and humanity, knit together as one within the sinews of his own Sacred Heart.

In raising our eyes to Jesus, therefore, we can discern the contours of our own vocation and the truth of our human existence. What, then, was the driving force of Jesus whole life and his deepest desire? It was the Father’s love for him, and his reciprocal love for the Father. Jesus knew that he was beloved, and he lived unceasingly from this place of belovedness—from the Father’s enveloping embrace, and from this mutual beholding of love. This was the source of all of his thoughts, actions, words, and desires, which flowed from the Father and returned to the Father.

When Jesus speaks of the blessedness of those who see God, he is therefore speaking of those whose hearts come to share in his own filial, childlike attitude before the Father, his own contemplative gaze, in which they enter into the radiance of his vision. He is speaking of those whose hearts allow themselves to be enkindled once again with the fire of divine love, at rest only in the heart of the Trinity’s embrace, and yet from this very burning desire spreading out spontaneously to each and every child of God.

In summary, the whole of Jesus’ life and mission flows from the place of his intimacy with the Father and returns to this place. The intimate bond of love uniting the Father and the Son, this Kiss that inseparably binds them together, is the true heart of all reality, that “point” from which all of creation and history spring.

Further, every single desire of the Son is an expression of his central and all-encompassing desire: his desire for the Father. Whether it is his deep human love for his friends—for Martha, Mary, Lazarus, or John the beloved—or his earnest longing to lay down his life to redeem us, or his simple delight in the beauty of nature, all of this springs from his contemplative gaze upon the countenance of his Father and his profound awareness of being gazed upon by the Father. The light of this mutual gaze irradiates his whole life and bathes it in its splendor, revealing the true value and meaning of every created thing, and especially the awesome dignity and unique beauty of each individual person.

What does this mean for what we have been saying about our own lives? First of all, it reveals that we have not been created and chosen by God for some ministry or mission, but for intimacy with the Trinity. When God looks lovingly upon us, his intention toward us is not one of “commissioning,” of making us an instrument for the good of our brethren, but rather an intention of pure and loving desire to unite us to himself. God’s love is the intense movement of his heart toward us, a movement of thirst to join himself to us in intimate love—an intimate love deeper and closer than any human intimacy, even the greatest.

Further, this loving desire of God is directed at each of us uniquely and unrepeatably, as if we were the only person he ever created. In a real sense, we are…for each individual is so unique, so profoundly special in the mystery that he has created us to be, that there is no comparison between one person and another. He loves me, truly, as he loves no other person…and with a love that is infinite and unbounded, that is, with his entire Self, infinite in majesty, beauty, and tenderness.

From this awesome desire and call of God, all the other elements of our lives spring as from an ever-flowing well. When we ourselves allow him to gaze upon us, and through this gaze to awaken our reciprocal gaze, our ceaseless pursuit of the divine Beauty, then we can also open out to our brothers and sisters and share in the ardent mission of Christ. And this mission consists precisely in bringing the light of God’s gaze to those who do not know it, and therefore in welcoming them as we have been welcomed by God, making our hearts an open space, a home, in which they can find the love, the acceptance, and the affirmation that they so deeply desire.

True fraternal love among humanity is therefore but an expression of the mutual beholding of the Father and the Son, and of God and each human heart, in that we come to see and to embrace one another within the light of God who enfolds us all together. Yes, at the very heart of this unique, intense, and everlasting love of God for each individual person, we find the space in which we can authentically encounter one another in the most profound and intimate way. And this encounter, because it occurs within the very light of the Trinity’s love, blossoms spontaneously in a breathtaking intimacy, which is the fulfillment of the prayer of Christ:

I pray, Father, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:21-24)

Our invitation, therefore, is to immerse ourselves in the Heart of Jesus Christ, who is the beloved Son of the Father from all eternity, and who has come to us in order to take us with him, back into his home in the Father’s embrace. We are gently summoned to lean against his bosom, as he leans against the bosom of the Father, and to allow him to take us up into himself. In doing this, he will touch, heal, purify, and transform our hearts, so that we can behold, in him and with him, the countenance of our loving Father. Caught up into the movement of love that ever passes between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we shall behold ourselves in the light of God’s gaze, and we will see all things in this light. Yes, this light will be our very life and our endless joy: to gaze eternally upon the face of the One who is eternally gazing upon us with such infinite tenderness and loving delight.