Illumina Domine Blog – Devotion to The Holy Face

We contemplate many things in the course of our day, and can make choices about what we give our attention to. Opening up a computer, or turning on a television or radio is an invitation for something, good or bad, to fill our eyes, ears, and souls.

Recently I learned about the creation of something called the “Metaverse,” a technology that people can use to experience with others a virtual reality. It is proposed as something beyond games and entertainment, but as an alternative to the universe we actually live in. The thought of such a thing fills me with an instinctive revulsion. The universe, created to be good, beautiful and true by God is worth contemplating as a hint of the good, truth, and beauty of the Face of the Creator. But the metaverse, rejecting that reality, offers instead a mask of non-reality, behind which is not a face, but an empty void. It is a rejection of God and His Creation.

What we are looking at matters. What we listen to matters. It’s not an understatement to say that the world is increasingly losing its grip on reality because it is no longer seeking the Face of God. It is running headlong off a cliff in pursuit of things to take the place of God; soul-destroying idols. Evil proposes, in a very seductive way naturally, that humanity contemplate the soul-less idols because they will separate us from God. God, on the other hand, proposes that we gaze upon the Face of His Son, Jesus Christ, who will unite us to Himself.

“We become what we contemplate. One who contemplates disfigured things becomes inwardly disfigured. One who contemplates transfigured things becomes inwardly transfigured. One who contemplates the all-beautiful Face of the Incarnate Word will be supernaturally beautified.”

St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face