13 Sunday Ordinary Time Year B

The 3rd Century theologian and biblical scholar Origen insightfully comments that it is this woman who has the divine touch: He writes,

The outer human being has the sensible faculty of touch, and the inner human being also has touch, that touch with which the woman with a haemorrhage touched the hem of Jesus’ garment (cf. Mark 5.25-34 parr). She touched it, as He testified who said: Who touched me? (Mark 5.30). Yet just before, Peter said to Him: The multitudes are pressing upon you and you ask, ‘Who touched me?’ (Luke 9.45 parr). Peter thinks that those touching are touching in a bodily, not spiritual manner. Thus, those pressing in on Jesus were not touching Him, for they were not touching Him in faith. Only the woman, having a certain divine touch, touched Jesus and by this was healed. And because she touched Him with a divine touch, this caused power to go forth from Jesus in response to her holy touch. Hence, He says: Someone touched me: for I perceive that power has gone forth from me (Luke 8.46). It is about this healing touch that John says: Which we have touched with our hands concerning the word of life (1 John 1.1).

(Treaty on the Passover, p. 72)

I find this line from Origen thought-provoking, “those pressing in on Jesus were not touching Him, for they were not touching Him in faith”.

My reading of it is that presence ‘with’ does not mean the same as present ‘to’.

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13th Sunday Ordinary Time Year B

The Gospel story this Sunday begins with a request, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her.” (Mark 5:23)

In the environment of today, that request would not be responded to with the immediacy Jesus showed.

Rather there would be caution, a sense of alertness, a sense of “ is this ok?”

Each of the rites of our Sacraments has as part of them a ritual laying on of hands.

I know several priests who, today, are very wary of that ritual action! particularly when the Sacrament is celebrated privately, for example, the First Rite of Reconciliation and the Anointing of the Sick in a private home or hospital.

Is there cause for us to reclaim a genuine theology of the body and of touch?

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