Touch and Believe
A Memory

The week between my birthday June 20, 2015  when Gemini turns into Cancer and my ordination anniversary (20 years earlier) on the Day of St John and St. Paul, a whole lot of victories hap-pened. A group of mourners were able to “forgive” young Roof, who wearing patches from Apart-heid South Africa and Rhodesia, who didn’t even know Mandela or Bishop Tutu and the efforts for reconciliation - but because in this country guns are a dime a dozen and can be had with cash - decided to start a race war because he wanted to prove superiority of the white race over all oth-ers. So he sat in an old treasured African American church in Charleston, S.C., listening to even-ing Bible Study, picking out who he wanted to slaughter with his gun, and then killed nine innocent Christian worshipers.  Sicker than that we cannot find these days.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of this nation could find no fault with Obama’s medical package and allowed it to stand, allowing many who cannot afford insurance to be sure their medical costs will be paid and that shuts up the Republicans.  The court’s  next step was to advise all 50 states that same sex marriages were legal with all the rights that go with it. This irritated Missis-sippi. Both of these acts ended long battles that have taken up too much of the press frenzy. At the same time, two violent escape convicts on the run for three weeks, were found - one was killed, the other shot but sufficiently alive to answer questions about what, how and why of their departure from their prisons. Then as if there was no more room for goodness, the Convention of the Episcopal Church elected on the first ballot, something like 200 to 20 the first African Ameri-can Bishop as primate - the fantastic Bishop Michael Curry. And there was celebration all over the place. Facebook has been alive with rainbow photographs and hope.  

But central in all of this is the power of “believe.” We in Memphis are accustomed to the yellow towels at basketball games with the dicho “Believe in Memphis” and how it has empowered the Grizzlies to fight like dogs and lions and bears to get deep into the playoffs. Most of the advo-cates for and against these issues have done just that. But I believe God’s will has superseded anything man could do. In Sunday’s reading from Mark, (5:21-45) we hear the story about the woman with hemorrhages for twelve years. Her only hope, her only belief, was if she could just touch the robe of Jesus, she would be healed. She reached out and touched his cloak, and she was healed. Jesus felt it. He inquired, “Who touched my robe?” and the disciples looking for a quick resolve, said - how do we know - all the people crowding around - anyone could have touched you. The woman came trembling and confessed it had been her. And Jesus recognizes her great faith, her great belief. And told her she was healed of her disease.

Touch and be healed. Believe and be healed. Here, in this very moment of Jesus’ life, began the  idea that it was good to touch something holy, because it has healing possibilities. How much of the Catholic and Orthodox faiths are built on touching holy objects, icons, relics? Cathedrals have been built for a sliver of the wooden cross supposedly where Jesus was crucified. Saint’s body parts and symbols are also powerful in healing and converting. Someone sees Mother Te-resa in a piece of toast, and that becomes a powerful healing mechanism. I have a personal let-ter typed crudely, maybe by one of her nuns surely,  but signed with the signature of the great Saint Mother Teresa. I keep it locked in a safe. Does it have healing properties? It’s a phenome-non that has really instigated the growth of Christianity. 

Purchase a square of cloth from St James or St. Augustine and put it in a fancy box, sometimes jeweled and golden, others in a simple safe place, and people will line up to enter the doors of that church and just get near the item.  Churches have been put on the map by such activity. And then there is the belief of appearances of the Holy Mother, the Virgin Mary, at spots all over the Western world like Walsingham, Lourdes, Fatima, Guadalupe, even so many more. These be-come cathedrals for the sick, beggars, the lost, the desperate, those willing to crawl on knees or prostrate to touch something, or just to be present. 

Even in Uruguay, on various saints’ days - like the Virgen de Treinta y Tres who has a special day when people get out their statues and  inscribe their prayers on scraps of paper to be pinned to the skirts of primary Holy Mary dolls - Oh it’s an event, that catholic parade/pilgrimage to a holy site. You see the sufferers, the poor, even the upper classes - everyone humbles themselves to thank the saint through whom they have prayed for hope to get God’s ear. There are candles everywhere, some bent over in the heat, others just burned down to a stub, but new ones are placed as prayers increase.  I love it. It’s a boots on the ground thing, not a finger exercise on something digital or seducing social media. Hope we can keep that humble and not commercial. And I thank God that we have those sites for pilgrimages and refreshing our faith.
 

 ~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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