MOVING FROM MIRROR TO FACE TO FACE

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

. . . At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
At present I know partially;
then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:7, 12-13

What do we see when we view something by looking at it (or “them”) in a mirror vs. turning around and experiencing people and their situation “face to face”?

When I see “you” through my own image of who you are, I don’t see the real you.  I see what I think you are. What I have allowed myself to know of you leads me to see you, not so much as you are, but as I “view” you to be. It is like seeing you “in a mirror” rather than seeing the “real” you – the “you” whom God knows is the “true you”, perhaps not the you that you think you are and, perhaps not yet fully the you who are brother or sister to me, but maybe closer to that than I (or you) see you to be. Both of us are made in the “image and likeness of God”, which will get clearer and come to be more real as we turn around and face each other, and, not only allow, but engage in and encourage each other to grow in faith, hope and, most importantly, love which “will remain even when faith has yielded to sight and hope to possession.”¹

1. Faith, hope and love: three interrelated (cf. 1 Cor 13:7 –’Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’) features of Christian life, more fundamental than any particular charism. The greatest…is love: love is operative even within the other members of the triad (faith and hope), so that it has a certain primacy among them. Or, if the perspective is temporal, love will remain (cf. “never fails,” 1 Cor 13:8) even when faith has yielded to sight and hope to possession.