A friend in Facebook once posted this interesting information: We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth (attributed to Virginia Satir, family therapist). To which I commented: If this were true, I would be in real bad shape now suffering from a severe hug deficiency!
Leo Buscaglia, the author of Living, Loving and Learning and a dozen more inspiring books was also known as Dr. Hug. He once said, “Everybody needs a hug. It changes your metabolism.” He is remembered as a passionate inspirational speaker who talked endlessly, without apologies, about love and authentic loving relationship. At the end of his every talk, he would spend time going to the audience and hug each of them (or at least those who wanted it). Those who were watching on TV could only wish to be a part of the audience and experience hugging this man who was bringing great inspiration into the world.
As relational beings, we do need to be physically connected to others, to feel that we are accepted and that we belong. The saddest and gruelling human experience, perhaps, is to be isolated from our loved ones, to be rejected as an outcast, to be reduced to nothing.
Dr. Hug, as he was fondly called, would always insist to go out and be connected with people, to reach out and touch them. An often quoted line from one of Buscaglia’s books comes to mind: “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
In today’s gospel (Mk. 1: 40-45), Jesus turns a leper’s life around by reaching out to him and actually touching him—an unthinkable gesture then. Jesus’ touch is all that matters to this social and religious outcast.
As a leper, this man is a social outcast. He has been consigned to the margins of society having to live outside the town away from people in order not to contaminate others with his dreadful skin disease. He has to take it upon himself to make sure that people shy away from him should he enter the town: He “shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’” (Lv. 13: 45). He is not just a social outcast but a religious outcast too. His ailment is seen as a curse from God on account of his grievous sins. The people of Israel are designated as “the Holy People;” hence a leper, unclean as he is, has no place in this religious community. He is barred from worshipping God in the temple. Therefore, to be a leper means to be absolutely rejected—by people, by your loved ones, by God.
In the gospel reading, the leper musters all his courage to approach Jesus who is his only hope to become clean again and become a person again. Jesus is moved with pity; He stretches out his hand and touches the outcast! Jesus speaks to him and proclaims the leper’s salvation: “I do will it. Be made clean.”
How I love to contemplate on this scene using my imagination taking on the personality of the leper, approaching Jesus with my every filth and experiencing firsthand the compassion and love of God through the tender look of Jesus, his reassuring touch, and his kind words of salvation.
Jesus respects the Mosaic Law. He has come not to abolish it but to perfect it. In reaching out and touching the leper, however, He has demonstrated the primacy of the worth and dignity of every person over social and religious mores. The law should not kill but save the person for he is a child of God. Jesus’ touch reminds everyone that no matter how sin spoils a child of God, he retains his worth in the eyes of God.
We are a people touched by God in Jesus Christ. Through his passion and death, Jesus definitively revealed the worth of every person. We are worth sacrificing and dying for! In His resurrection, He has given us the assurance that sin has been vanquished and we can all have new life; never again will anyone who comes to the Lord be unclean and be declared an outcast. In our baptism, we have a sacramental experience of this powerful and saving touch of God cleansing us and giving us new life in Christ. What a gift!
The leper in the gospel has been warned not to tell anyone about his cure. But it is not difficult to understand him when he defies this warning and starts to dance around with joy proclaiming the saving deeds of God in his life. Do we exude such joy that only a people touched by God can have? Do we extend to others this beautiful blessing of being touched by God?
Leo Buscaglia, the author of Living, Loving and Learning and a dozen more inspiring books was also known as Dr. Hug. He once said, “Everybody needs a hug. It changes your metabolism.” He is remembered as a passionate inspirational speaker who talked endlessly, without apologies, about love and authentic loving relationship. At the end of his every talk, he would spend time going to the audience and hug each of them (or at least those who wanted it). Those who were watching on TV could only wish to be a part of the audience and experience hugging this man who was bringing great inspiration into the world.
As relational beings, we do need to be physically connected to others, to feel that we are accepted and that we belong. The saddest and gruelling human experience, perhaps, is to be isolated from our loved ones, to be rejected as an outcast, to be reduced to nothing.
Dr. Hug, as he was fondly called, would always insist to go out and be connected with people, to reach out and touch them. An often quoted line from one of Buscaglia’s books comes to mind: “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
In today’s gospel (Mk. 1: 40-45), Jesus turns a leper’s life around by reaching out to him and actually touching him—an unthinkable gesture then. Jesus’ touch is all that matters to this social and religious outcast.
As a leper, this man is a social outcast. He has been consigned to the margins of society having to live outside the town away from people in order not to contaminate others with his dreadful skin disease. He has to take it upon himself to make sure that people shy away from him should he enter the town: He “shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’” (Lv. 13: 45). He is not just a social outcast but a religious outcast too. His ailment is seen as a curse from God on account of his grievous sins. The people of Israel are designated as “the Holy People;” hence a leper, unclean as he is, has no place in this religious community. He is barred from worshipping God in the temple. Therefore, to be a leper means to be absolutely rejected—by people, by your loved ones, by God.
In the gospel reading, the leper musters all his courage to approach Jesus who is his only hope to become clean again and become a person again. Jesus is moved with pity; He stretches out his hand and touches the outcast! Jesus speaks to him and proclaims the leper’s salvation: “I do will it. Be made clean.”
How I love to contemplate on this scene using my imagination taking on the personality of the leper, approaching Jesus with my every filth and experiencing firsthand the compassion and love of God through the tender look of Jesus, his reassuring touch, and his kind words of salvation.
Jesus respects the Mosaic Law. He has come not to abolish it but to perfect it. In reaching out and touching the leper, however, He has demonstrated the primacy of the worth and dignity of every person over social and religious mores. The law should not kill but save the person for he is a child of God. Jesus’ touch reminds everyone that no matter how sin spoils a child of God, he retains his worth in the eyes of God.
We are a people touched by God in Jesus Christ. Through his passion and death, Jesus definitively revealed the worth of every person. We are worth sacrificing and dying for! In His resurrection, He has given us the assurance that sin has been vanquished and we can all have new life; never again will anyone who comes to the Lord be unclean and be declared an outcast. In our baptism, we have a sacramental experience of this powerful and saving touch of God cleansing us and giving us new life in Christ. What a gift!
The leper in the gospel has been warned not to tell anyone about his cure. But it is not difficult to understand him when he defies this warning and starts to dance around with joy proclaiming the saving deeds of God in his life. Do we exude such joy that only a people touched by God can have? Do we extend to others this beautiful blessing of being touched by God?
Again in the words of Dr. Hug: Let us not “underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
No comments:
Post a Comment