"Touching Christ with the hand of faith"

If you set your heart aright, you will stretch out your hands toward him.  ~Job 11:13

 

Speaking of faith I must always think of that sick woman among the crowd who, gaining access to Jesus, touched him in order to be healed and was healed. The Lord said: “Who touched my garments?” They said to him: “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘who touched me?’” (cf. Mk 5:25-34, 7:27-30). But the Lord knows there is a way of touching him that is superficial, external, that really has nothing to do with a true encounter with him. And there is a way of touching him profoundly. And this woman truly touched him: she did not only touch him with her hand, but with her heart and thus received Christ’s healing power, truly touching him from within, from faith. This is faith: touching Christ with the hand of faith, with our heart, and thus entering into the power of his life, into the healing power of the Lord. And let us pray the Lord that we may touch him more and more, so as to be healed. Let us pray that he will not let us fall, that he too may take us by the hand and thus preserve us for true life.

 

~Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Lectio Divina of 2/8/13

 

I call to You, Lord, all day long;

to You I stretch out my hands.

~Psalm 88(87):10