The pericope was Exodus 32-34 but the passages at the end of chapter 33 caught the eye of the first-time Bible reader in our study group:

He answered, "I will make all my beauty pass before you, and in your presence I will pronounce my name, 'LORD'; I who show favors to whom I will, I who grant mercy to whom I will.

But my face you cannot see, for no man sees me and still lives. Here," continued the LORD, "is a place near me where you shall station yourself on the rock.

When my glory passes I will set you in the hollow of the rock and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

Then I will remove my hand, so that you may see my back; but my face is not to be seen."

NAB - Exodus 33:19-23

The rookie reader focused on the anthropomorphic language in the passage, which attributes to God the Almighty physical features: face, hand, back. He said, "I guess God is a human. And all these years, I thought God was spirit!"

No one knew what to say to him.

For any of us to counter that God is, in fact, spirit, would only have driven him back to the Exodus passage and his literal understanding of it. "How to account for this?" he may well have asked.

To challenge him along these lines, "So, you think the Mormons have a point?" would have cowed him into tight-lipped retreat, sure enough, but we aren't about fostering reticence among our participants. We want to draw out these jumbled impressions and put 'em right. Still, what text to show him?

Our leader could have taken us to the woman at the well in John 4 and read from verse 24 which says "God is spirit" and clear up the matter entirely. But he chose to stay within the Jewish tradition, in the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures, lest anyone object that this is a Christian / Jewish distinction.

He lead us to 1 Kings 19:11-13, God's appearance to Elijah in which God's transcendence is emphasized. Note especially the footnote: "Though various phenomena, such as wind, storms, earthquakes, fire, herald the divine presence, they do not constitute the presence itself which, like the tiny whispering sound, is imperceptible and bespeaks the spirituality of God." God is quite above us, otherwise the Incarnation would not have been so remarkable.

The footnote to Exodus 33:23 in the New American Bible takes a creative angle: You may see my back: man can see God's glory as reflected in creation, but his "face," that is, God as he is in himself, mortal man cannot behold. Cf 1 Cor 13:12.

Reference: Catholic Update: "What Catholics Believe" - Fr. Foley