From then-Cardinal Ratzinger “On The Way To Jesus Christ”
“Exodus, clearly pointed to Christ, the refusal to allow him to see and the restriction that he could only glimpse “the back of God” could not likewise be applied to Jesus. In the first instance, the figure of Moses accordingly represented both the mystery of Christ and the way of Jesus’ disciples; the second text, then, must point to them, that is, to all of us who believe in Christ. This is the basic thought in the patristic commentaries on Exodus 33; naturally their interpretations of this difficult text about seeing God’s back, about standing in the cleft of the rock beneath God’s hands, which cover our eyes, vary greatly as to the details. Personally, I always find particularly moving the commentary on this passage that Gregory of Nyssa gives. Being able to see God only from the back—what else does that mean, he says, but that we can only encounter God by walking after Jesus; that the only way we can see him is by following Jesus, which means walking behind him and thus going along behind God’s back.”
I copied a lot from this book into my quote journal.
