My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? (Psalm 41:3 DR)
It is often remarked that dying of thirst is one of the most agonizing of all deaths. Hunger eventually subsides, but thirst only increases the longer it is not satiated. Thirst thus becomes the primary metaphor of the opening of this Psalm, for it is both a desire and a need, something that we long for and something that we can die from. Elsewhere in the Scriptures we are told:
Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing. (Song of Solomon 8:7 DR)
The desire of the Psalmist for the Lord in the midst of his sojourning is met with the feebleness of language to capture it. Thus, instead of lofty eloquence he opts for the basest of appetites, that gnawing of thirst that compels us to search out water and drives us mad when we cannot find it.
St. Augustine follows the natural parallelism of this passage to arrive at the source of this thirst. The Psalmist speaks of thirsting after God, and then immediately follows it with a question: when will I appear before the face of God? The thirst is thus tied to the nature of our longing, which is predicated on the fact of our sojourning in this life:
For what is it thirsty? When shall I come and appear before God? This it is for which I am thirsty, to come and to appear before Him. I am thirsty in my pilgrimage, in my running; I shall be filled on my arrival. But When shall I come? And this, which is soon in the sight of God, is late to our longing. When shall I come and appear before God? This too proceeds from that longing, of which in another place comes that cry, One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. Wherefore so? That I may behold (he says) the beauty of the Lord. When shall I come and appear before the Lord? Meanwhile, whilst I am training myself, whilst I am on my course, on my way, before I come and appear. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 41, 5, 6.)
It is thus because we are in transit to our heavenly home that we thirst in this life, for we have not yet arrived at where our true home is. The Psalmist speaks of coming and appearing before the face of God, which speaks to three things.
The first is that to “come” before the face of God implies that we are otherwise not present before the face of God. That is, this world is not our home and should not be considered as such. In fact, the further implication is that to remain “at home” in this world is to never “come” before the face of God. Hence St. Augustine speaks of “training” oneself, alluding to St. Paul’s words about making his body a slave (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:26-27) and running the race without hindrance (cf. Hebrews 12:1).
Secondly, to “appear” before the face of God has courtly overtures, as in being admitted to an audience with the King. This naturally has eventual correspondence with right worship, which the Psalmist will go on to link with the tabernacle and which in the New Covenant is found in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Theodoret of Cyrus links this longing to right worship:
I am longing and thirsting for the worship of my living God, he is saying. “To see the face of God” means worshipping Him according to the Law, and such worship was confined to Jerusalem… very appropriately do they name God “strong and living” as they take note of the lifeless and immobile idols of the Babylonians. (Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the Psalms, 41.2, ACCS.)
St. Paul will likewise draw a parallel in that rightly ordered worship and being in a state of grace is necessary to receive the Eucharist, this means of “appearing” before the face of God:
For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come. Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 11:26-29 DR)
Lastly, the “face of God” is ultimately the Beatific Vision, the goal for which we are striving in our sojourning through this vale of tears. It is because of the purity and holiness of God that we strive to walk in His light, to cooperate with His grace so as to purify ourselves from all sin and attachments to sin, which is the reason our Lord appeared. St. John poignantly describes the end for which the Psalmist longs:
Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is. And every one that hath this hope in him, sanctifieth himself, as he also is holy. Whosoever committeth sin committeth also iniquity; and sin is iniquity. And you know that he appeared to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. (1 John 3:2-5 DR)
The closer we get to our Lord and the more we grow in virtue, the more our thirst for sin abates and our thirst for God intensifies. We experience this in other things in this life. If you have an overwrought attachment or even addiction to something—even if it is not per se evil, like food or drink—the desire for that can be overwhelming and can frame the entirety of your life around its satiation. But if you’ve ever experienced finally overcoming that, it can often occur that the previous desire abates and even turns into disgust or at least indifference. However, in overcoming these things it is almost always the case that it is not merely avoiding the problematic thing, but replacing it with a better thing. In terms of the moral life this is certainly the case in that it is not enough to avoid sin; we must also pursue virtue, as the moral life abhors a vacuum. St. Gregory of Nyssa explains this dynamic:
He who had already tasted virtue and has understood by personal experience the good is no longer wicked because constraint and admonition have lured him away from inclinations toward evil; he now looks to virtue and thirsts after the good… This person thirsts more for union with God than the deer desiring springs of water. Anyone who comes upon this fountain with a raging thirst draws out as much water as he desires. He satisfies his cravings and the fulfillment of his longing. This fullness is not like the body’s where what was once filled is again emptied. Neither does this drink remain inactive, but the divine fountain which contains this drink lays claim to the person who has grasped it and imparts something of its own power. (St. Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Inscription of the Psalms, Book 1., Chapter 5.)
In the end this longing for God reaches beyond this life and its cares and troubles, seeking the true end for which it was made, that thirst which can only be sated by the infinite ocean of charity found in the divine vision of seeing God face to face:
St. Chrysostom observes, that three things usually excite our love, and through it our thirst and desires; and these are the beauty of the object, favors conferred on us, and love itself, for beautiful objects almost compel one to love them; favors conferred, lead us to love the giver; and love on their part provokes mutual love. Should these three things be united in one person, that is, could there be found or imagined any one of surpassing beauty, conferring boundless favors daily on another, for whom they feel the most intense and ardent love, how could the latter possibly stand by not ardently loving the former in return? (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 41, 2.)
This animation was pretty simple, just Trapcode Mir and playing around with the parameters to create a water-y effect. I added in some lights to give it a bit of stylization, and then some color correction and a bit of glow.
Enjoy.
My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?
(Psalm 41:3 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here:
