The Veil Between Us and the Glory of God

Homily for Thursday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

St. Paul uses a great deal of parallelism in this passage from his Second Letter to the Corinthians. This rhetorical device is used to explain “the veil over the face of Moses”; this idea was first introduced in the passage from this letter that we read yesterday. In order to understand what he is at saying in this passage, we have to first deal with how St. Paul uses the image of a veil.

When Moses descended from Mount Sinai after having seen the glory of God, the Israelites noticed immediately that his face seemed unusually bright – so much so, that Moses was forced to wear a veil over his face in order to protect the children of Israel from God’s reflected glory. Moses realized that the Israelites were not prepared to look upon his countenance nor the reflected glory of God’s face and would have been very frightened by his visage. Without impugning Moses’ sincerity, Paul attributes another effect to the veil. Since the veil lay between God’s glory and the Israelites, they were unable to fully understand what Moses had experienced.

Then St. Paul shifts his attention to the Israelites of his time. Like their ancestors they are unable to understand the true meaning of the covenant that was struck between God and the Israelites. It is as if a veil still lies between them and the glory of God. St. Paul explains that when someone fully and authentically converts and turns to the Lord, the veil or impediment to their understanding is removed so that they can see clearly the effects of the New Covenant instituted through the death and resurrection of Jesus. He goes on to say that it is the Holy Spirit who lifts the veil and reveals the fullness of Christ’s covenant to them through baptism.

The Gospel passage is taken from the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon by which Jesus explains the full meaning of the commandments. Jesus, in essence, is telling us to remove the veil that limits what we comprehend. When we follow Christ’s teachings, we live as God intended through the first or old covenant struck with Moses on Mount Sinai. We choose to live fully, interpreting the commandments through the commandments to love God and to love our neighbors.

The Eucharist is the expression of the New Covenant. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist, each time we receive the body and blood of Jesus in communion, we answer “Amen” (So be it!) to our inclusion in the covenant that Jesus has made with us.