Lumen Fidei - page 17

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14. In the faith of Israel we also encounter the
figure of Moses, the mediator. The people may
not see the face of God; it is Moses who speaks
to YHWH on the mountain and then tells the
others of the Lord’s will. With this presence of
a mediator in its midst, Israel learns to journey
together in unity. The individual’s act of faith
finds its place within a community, within the
common “we” of the people who, in faith, are
like a single person — “my first-born son”, as
God would describe all of Israel (cf. Ex 4:22).
Here mediation is not an obstacle, but an open-
ing: through our encounter with others, our gaze
rises to a truth greater than ourselves. Rousseau
once lamented that he could not see God for
himself: “How many people stand between God
and me!”11 … “Is it really so simple and natural
that God would have sought out Moses in order
to speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau?”12 On the ba-
sis of an individualistic and narrow conception
of conscience one cannot appreciate the signif-
icance of mediation, this capacity to participate
in the vision of another, this shared knowledge
which is the knowledge proper to love. Faith is
God’s free gift, which calls for humility and the
courage to trust and to entrust; it enables us to
see the luminous path leading to the encounter
of God and humanity: the history of salvation.
11 Émile, Paris, 1966, 387.
12 Lettre à Christophe de Beaumont, Lausanne, 1993, 110.