Monday, February 10, 2014

Touched

Then Solomon said, “The LORD intends to dwell in the dark cloud; I have truly built you a princely house, a dwelling where you may abide forever.”  1 Kings 8:12-13

Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed.  Mark 6:56

Piety
St. Scholastica Prayer
O God, to show us where innocence leads, you made the soul of your virgin Saint Scholastica soar to heaven like a dove in flight.  Grant through her merits and her prayers that we may so live in innocence as to attain to joys everlasting.  This we ask through our Lord. 

Study
To touch.  To be touched.  In the array of human senses, this is one of the most profound ways we encounter the environment.  Touch is not just an action, it also is an emotion.   People can be moved by a hug, an embrace.  However, they also can be stirred by the beauty of a song, a landscape or other artwork, or a speech or sermon well delivered. 

Sickness does not heal itself.  Sometimes an illness may run its course but most times, it needs some outside intervention.  Medicine.  Surgery.  Massage.  Food.  Water.  The body needs to be strengthened to overcome whatever ails it. Loneliness does not heal itself, either.  The answer to loneliness is relationship.  

Jesus broke with the conventional wisdom. He needed no herbs or potions.  He needed no intervention beyond his touch to move people to healing. Without that touch, they would have remained blind in Bethesda, lepers outside the city walls and otherwise afflicted.  Without touching Him, they would have remained outside of a right relationship with the overall community. 

Action
Sometimes we run out of medicine.  Maybe the doctor thought you needed the prescription for seven or ten days.  But when things don’t clear up, she extends the treatment.  Not Doctor Jesus.  As many as were touched were healed. His healing touch was inexhaustible.  Just as the cloud touched everyone in the temple, Jesus touches everyone.  

Through whom will He touch you today?  How can you extend His touch to others?

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