Wednesday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 2, 2023

Exodus 34, 29-35

As Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands, he did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while he conversed with the Lord. When Aaron, then, and the other children of Israel saw Moses and noticed how radiant the skin of his face had become, they were afraid to come near him. Only after Moses called to them did Aaron and all the rulers of the community come back to him. Moses then spoke to them. Later on, all the children of Israel came up to him, and he enjoined on them all that the Lord had told him on Mount Sinai. When he finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. Whenever Moses entered the presence of the Lord to converse with him, he removed the veil until he came out again. On coming out, he would tell the children of Israel all that had been commanded. Then the children of Israel would see that the skin of Moses’ face was radiant; so he would again put the veil over his face until he went in to converse with the Lord.

It is a fact that the habit of prayer changes a person.  We could say that it changes a person the way periods of silence would change anyone, causing them to be more self-aware, more patient, more capable of curbing impulsiveness, and so on.  But regular periods of prayer to Almighty God open a person to the power of grace, resulting in not just better behavior but saintly behavior.  God is not a faraway and unconcerned force but supremely loving and life-giving.  Contact with him by one who desires him changes that person’s inmost being, and this reflected unconsciously through one’s appearance, speech, and actions.  We see how communion with God affected Moses in today’s Gospel Reading, and the physical changes only hint at what is happening within him: “The skin of his face had become radiant while he conversed with the Lord.”  Moses was unaware of this because communion with God had become so normal for him.  Others, however reacted strongly: “They were afraid to come near him.”  They knew he had changed though communion with God but they did not understand what that meant.  He was different from them and they knew it.  Very probably his presence caused them to feel something moving or changing within them and they found this unsettling.  Very prayerful people have this quality.  For instance, people could feel when Mother Teresa entered a room.  They might not even see her but she affected them simply by her presence.  I know people who converted to the Faith because of this experience with her.  Prayer, in many ways, is the best tool of the missionary.

“When he finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.”  Moses did this so as not to frighten people away from the words God told him to say.  But the Lord Jesus tells us to proclaim from the housetops what he tells us to say.  This is the effect of the new covenant and the fulfilled Law at the sender of which the Lord Jesus pleads with us to turn from sin that we might go with him to heaven.  These days, though, we find people “veiling their faces” in order to hide the grace of God in their lives.  They avoid prayer — communion with God — so as not to be changed by it and appear different to the folks who surround them.  Gradually, any real practice of the Faith fades from their lives.  

If we want to make Jesus the center of our lives then we must talk to him.  We must “pray continually”, as St. Paul says.  And lest any thought of our unworthiness seek to prevent us from communing with him, let us recall that we have “a great high priest that hath passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God” (Hebrews 4, 14) and so we can  go “with confidence to the throne of grace: that we may obtain mercy and find grace in seasonable aid.”