“Jesus reached out his hand and touched him.” Luke 5:13

“The language of touch is a language all itself.” John O’Donohue

What is that language that O’Donohue speaks of?

You and I both know—it is the language of love.  There is no means of communication more powerful than that of “touching love.”  “Virtual reality”, which has supplanted our society with a faux expression of community and friendship, is severely lacking when it comes to the language of loving touch.

When was the last time someone touched you?

And when was the last time you touched someone else?

What was that touch like?

Consider for a moment the many different types of touch. 

There is a handshake, or holding hands.

There is a touch on the arm, the face, or the back.

There is the touch of a loving embrace.

There is the sensual touch exchanged by lovers.

Touch is sacred. There are many reasons why God chose to take on human flesh, not the least of which was to illustrate and communicate the power of loving touch.

It is so very striking that Jesus doesn’t just teach, preach, or talk to people—he touches them.  Everyone.  Not just those that he loved, or that others found loveable, but even and especially those that were considered unclean and “untouchable”, like the leper referred to in the passage above.

I wonder how it was that Jesus touched this man?  Did he hold his hand?  Did he stroke his face?  Did he put his hand on his head for a blessing?  Or did he fully embrace?

It leads me to wonder about how Jesus has touched me—when, how?  Have you ever thought about that?  I would invite you to join me in doing so for a moment. How has God touched you?

Touch is sacred.  Touch is divine.  Touch is intimate. Touch is sensual.  Touch can be sexual.

Isn’t it fascinating that the history of the so-called Christian Church is one in which touch has been demonized, especially in the intimate, sensual, and sexual form?  What a disservice was done to so many in the pursuit of false piety.  Actually, not just a disservice but a death—be it of faith or literally of the body.  I shudder to think of those who were punished, especially women, for their sins that were committed “in the flesh.”

It wasn’t that way with the Celts.  O’Donohue redeems, or at least attempts to redeem, the holiness and health of the loving, divine touch, expressed in a myriad of ways. 

“The world of sexuality is a sacred world of presence. The world of Eros is one of the devastated casualties of contemporary commercialism and greed. George Steiner has written powerfully about this.[1] He shows how the words of intimacy, the night words of eros and affection, the secret words of love, have been vacated in the neon day of greed and consumerism. We desperately need to retrieve these gentle and sacred words of touch in order to engage our full human nature.”[2]

I wonder if O’Donohue left his vocation as a priest in the Roman Catholic church in part to do this very thing that he describes.  It is sad that human touch was on the one hand sterilized by “the church” and on the other was corrupted and defiled by the prohibition against touch, thus leading to horrible and horrific abuses. 

O’Donohue invites us today to embrace what it means to faithfully follow the “God with skin on”, Jesus, who invites his followers to engage and embrace healthy and holy touch.  In so doing one will “hear” clearly the love of God.

Here is part of a poem about touch by Walt Whitman

There is the one quality significant above all, essential—the quality of touch—
To touch anyone, what is this then?
What is less or more than a touch?
A touch now reads me a library of knowledge in an instant,
It talks for me with a tongue of its own,
It finds an ear wherever it rests or taps.

Do you know what it is to have men and women crave the touch of your hand and the contact of you?
One touch—that wonderful indescribable combination,
Rarely found, precious when found,
Uniting great manly strength with sweet delicacy,
Soft as a woman’s, gentle enough to nurse a child.

Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
There is something in the touch of any candid clean person,
What it is I do not know, but it fills me with wonderful and exquisite sensations.
Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,
To touch my person to someone else’s is about as much as I can stand.

---

[1] O’Donohue does not include a specific reference here, but I suspect he may be referring to the book “Real Presences” by Steiner.

[2] “Anam Cara”, p. 75