TOUCH

Touch is a powerful sense experience.

I remember the good Fr. Carpintero. We used to have him as our regular confessor. Every time I confess to him, he would embrace me. And just like a long lost son or a friend, he would counsel me, while his arm is around my shoulder. I felt his concern for me, his compassion for a sinner. It was a touching experience. More than the counsel and the penance, it is what I remember.

Our Lord is good to us. In his desire to save us, he assumed a tangible nature; our humanity. Through the mystery of incarnation, our Lord became touchable. More so, through the same mystery, he was able to touch us physically; and save us personally.

But how do we value the touch of the Lord, the physical presence of God in our lives?

The Lord may not be in the form he had two thousand years ago, but still He continues to exist as a tangible God through the Eucharist. Every day, He touches us, indeed nourishes through his own body and blood.

Are we healed by His touch? Are we transformed by His physical presence? Are we renewed by the Eucharist? Few can answer in the affirmative, perhaps because we have lose our gift of faith from our tangible and touchable God. 

I would like to share with you the beautiful prayer composed by our brother Thomas on the touchable God.

 
I devoutly adore you, O hidden Deity, 
Truly hidden beneath these appearances.
My whole heart submits to you,
And in contemplating you, It surrenders itself completely.

Sight, touch, taste are all deceived in their judgment of you,
But hearing suffices firmly to believe.
I believe all that the Son of God has spoken;
There is nothing truer than this word of truth.

On the cross only the divinity was hidden,
But here the humanity is also hidden.
I believe and confess both,
And ask for what the repentant thief asked.

I do not see the wounds as Thomas did,
But I confess that you are my God.
Make me believe more and more in you,
Hope in you, and love you.

O memorial of our Lord's death!
Living bread that gives life to man,
Grant my soul to live on you,
And always to savor your sweetness.

Lord Jesus, Good Pelican,
wash my filthiness and clean me with your blood,
One drop of which can free
the entire world of all its sins.

Jesus, whom now I see hidden,
I ask you to fulfill what I so desire:
That the sight of your face being unveiled 
I may have the happiness of seeing your glory. Amen.