According to St. Paul when we get to heaven we shall see God “face to face,” called in the tradition the “beatific vision.” Artists and poets have imagined what that might be like — their images are, literally, out of this world. Maybe Philip was thinking along those lines when he said to Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” He expected the sight of God to be something beyond any experience he could imagine. Jesus seems somewhat exasperated; Philip missed the point of the past three years of his training. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. What Jesus wants Philip, and us, to understand is that “to love another person is to see the face of God.”
MAY92020
By Church Staff
