“Let us see your face and we shall be saved” – Psalm 80:3
The hardest part of teaching these past two years was not being able to see the faces of students. I realized that; I rely on facial cues in understanding the mind of students. So in these COVID times, face-covering and masks have made it difficult to recognize the needs of students and, as a result, caused difficulty in creating a deeper rapport with students. When we look at someone’s face, most times, we recognize the feeling behind those faces – joy, sorrow, anguish, and so on. When I experimented with creating sculptures and painting, the hardest part of the work was creating a face – the one that portrays and shares a message and a story.
In today’s reading, the psalmist exclaims that “let us see your face, so that we shall be saved”. What does the face of God look like? What does that face tell us? How do you differentiate God’s face from others? The answer to that question is in the day’s gospel – the face of God is that of a suffering human. It speaks of the sins of each of us – past, present, and the future. When we join in solidarity with the pain of others, Christ’s face is revealed to us in our brothers and sisters. The season of Advent is also a reminder to see the other so that the face of Christ becomes visible to us. When we notice Christ in others, salvation becomes a reality to us.
Loving God, in solidarity with all those suffering, may we offer our lives as a witness and share Your face to all those we meet and greet.
Amen.
Renju Paul
To view the full Advent 2021 booklet in English, click here.
For Spanish, click here.
For French, click here.