You Just Want to See His Face

The Rolling Stones, the Song of Songs, and the Soul That’s Done Performing

When the Rolling Stones were exiled on Main Street, they gave us one of the strangest, dirtiest gospel songs ever recorded. The track, “I Just Want to See His Face,” isn’t a clean hymn or tidy sermon—it’s a rattle and a groan.

It opens with the sound of faint voices murmuring like a backroom prayer circle, layered over tribal drums and a tambourine that feels like it’s having a fit of religious ecstasy.

Mick Jagger hums and wails through it all, half-preaching, half-pleading, and somewhere in the chaos, his voice breaks through with the line: “You don’t want to walk and talk about Jesus—you just want to see His face.”

And to that I say: same, Mick. So did the Bride in the Song of Songs.

Because as wild as it sounds, Jagger’s raw little gospel track touches something ancient and deeply Catholic.

In the Song of Songs, the Bride isn’t interested in theology debates, religious posturing, or spiritual performance. She just wants Him. She wants to see His face. She wants to hear His voice. She wants to belong, to be held, and to be found. And in one of the most tender verses of the entire Bible, the Bridegroom says to her, “Let me see your face. Let me hear your voice. For your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely” (Song 2:14).

This desire—for presence, not performance—is what bridal mysticism is all about. Not walking and talking about Jesus to prove something, but simply longing to be near Him. To be with the One who already wants to see your face.

The Song of Songs is a strange book. It never mentions God by name. There are no laws, no miracles, no moral teaching. Just a Bride and a Bridegroom—searching for each other, calling to each other, hiding and revealing, wounding and healing. And yet, it has been called the holiest book of Scripture by both Jews and Christians alike.

For centuries, saints and mystics have read it not as erotic literature, but as mystical theology. The Bride is the soul. The Bridegroom is Christ. And their story is your story—your spiritual life, your moments of longing and dryness, closeness and distance, being wounded and being embraced.

The Church doesn’t read this book as an allegory in the shallow sense. It reads it as symbolic realism: that the desire, struggle, and union described in the Song are real things that happen in the soul. They are expressed through the language of love because that’s the only language big enough to hold them.

So let’s talk about the journey.

It begins with longing:

“Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.”

The soul doesn’t start by asking to serve, or to understand. She wants to be close. She wants intimacy. This is the beginning of all real prayer: not knowledge, but desire.

Then comes absence. He disappears. She searches. She runs through the streets at night. She gets bruised by the watchmen. This is the dark night, the silence, the ache of spiritual dryness.

Then union. He returns. She is embraced. She is brought into the wine cellar. She rests. This is the sweetness of communion—sometimes sacramental, sometimes in prayer.

But then: foxes. Brothers who reject her. Shame. She forgets her own vineyard. This is real life creeping back in—the small lies we believe, the old wounds that steal our confidence in love.

Still, He calls her beautiful. She starts to believe it.

Then, hiding. She pulls away. He doesn’t force her out. He just says:

“Let me see your face. Let me hear your voice.”

He calls her voice sweet. He calls her face lovely. Even when she doesn’t feel it.

And finally, union again. But this time, lasting. The chase is over. She leans on Him. She says, “I am my Beloved’s, and His desire is for me.”

The Song begins with a kiss. It ends in the garden. No more searching. Just communion.

For us, that union is fulfilled in the Eucharist. The kiss becomes the banquet. The hunger is met with real presence. The mystics say that in the Eucharist, God gives not just His gifts, but His self. His whole body, blood, soul, and divinity.

But union also happens in the stillness of prayer. When we let ourselves be seen again. When we stop trying to walk and talk about Jesus for other people’s approval, and simply let Him look at us. When we sit in silence and let our voice rise again.

Yes, Mick Jagger stumbled into something sacred. So have the mystics. So have you, probably, without even realizing it.

You don’t need to perform. You just need to let yourself be found.

And He’s already calling:

“Let me see your face.”