Seeing The Face

Verumtamen iusti confitebuntur nomini tuo, et habitabunt recti cum vultu tuo. Designatur hoc debere fieri inter quaslibet temporis graves amarasque pressuras. Tunc enim magna virtus est laudare Dominum, quando se istius saeculi blandimenta subducunt. Bonus enim fuit Iob, cum Dominum dives colebat, sed quanto melior, dum eum sub multiplici afflictione laudabat! Tunc ergo amplius desideremus gratias agere, quando nos tentator conatur affligere. Facilius enim inimicus discedit, cum viderit excedere non posse quos deprimit. Nam vide quid sequitur, quia cum vultu eius habitare non desinunt, qui recti sunt. Visio infastidibilis atque perpetua illum semper videre, a quo se solet omnis rationabilis creatura reficere, sicut et in quintodecimo psalmo iam dictum est: Adimplebis me laetitia cum vultu tuo. Ille enim vultus praemiorum omnium munus est, nec potest esse cuiusquam bonitatis indignus, qui illum meruerit habere conspectum. Sed cum legatur: Nemo Deum vidit unquam, istud ad illud tempus referendum est, quando beati Dominum non per speculum, sed, ut ait Apostolus, facie ad faciem contuentur. Cassiodorus, Expositio In Psalterium, Psalmus CXXXIX Source: Migne PL 70.998c-d

Certainly they will rejoice in your name and the righteous will dwell with your face. 1 This speaks of those who have endured amid the heavy and bitter pressures of the time. For indeed it is a great virtue to praise the Lord when the allures of this world would corrupt, as Job was good when as a rich man he revered the Lord, but it was much better that he praised Him while he was suffering many afflictions. Therefore we should have greater desire to give thanks when the tempter tries to afflict us. For the enemy swiftly flees when he sees he cannot cast down those he presses on. Then see what follows, that those who are righteous shall not cease to dwell with His face. They shall always see an inexhaustible and endless vision of Him, in which every rational creature finds its rest, as it has already been said in the fifteenth Psalm, 'In joy you shall embrace me with your face.' 2 For that face is the greatest of all rewards, and it is not possible that anyone unworthy of this good shall merit to see it. But when we read: 'No one has seen the face of God,' 3 then what we have here in this Psalm must refer to that time when the blessed do not look on the Lord 'in a mirror' but, as the Apostle says, 'face to face'. 4 Cassiodorus, Commentary On The Psalms, from Psalm 139 1 Ps 139.14 2 Ps 15.11 3 Jn 1.18 4 1 Cor 13.12