This is a Great Mystery

I'm going to be honest here (not that I am ever not "pointedly honest" with this blog) -
this semester has been, without a doubt, my least productive. I have managed to work 20 hours nearly every week, write and present the "God's Vision of Love" talk series and organize and fundraise for a mission to Haiti this December... but despite my deep gratitude to the Lord for all of these good works, the truth is that I have certainly slacked on my actual school work, which really should be my priority.

So, my firm resolve is to dive back into my wonderfully nerdy self as soon as is physically possible (and that is probably not until Christmas break). Until then, seeing as how I am already behind in all of my reading, I might as well go ahead a write a blog post :)

I wanted to talk about touch.

Touch, I feel (haha), is one of the more neglected senses.
Certainly not in all areas of life, but I'm speaking in a universal way. Sight is often harped on, or spoken highly of, or at least observed, whether it is the way we look at some one, or the way we are perceived, or more obviously the things to be observed such as color and shape. Our ability to hear is possibly even more practiced (if your ipod isn't playing, music from the computer will be, let's not deny it.) Smell... well, ok, smell gets the shaft. Taste is certainly appreciated in our culture, I don't think that needs explanation (although many settle for tastes that are mediocre).
But touch.

Much of my thought is coming from all that has been discussed on this blog from the "Adequate Anthropology" series and the "God's Vision of Love" series, and those points are basically drawing on John Paul II's understanding of anthropology, of the human person. This anthropology is necessarily a theological one. You cannot have the gift without the giver.

But before Christ, the encounter with the Lord was very typically a spiritual one only. Of course, the prophets and those who were chosen to establish covenants with the Lord such as Abraham and David certainly encountered him while being in-body, or embodied, and so they heard him with their ears even if he was not physically before them (and I am not going to go further into that although there is much to be thought about). But with Christ came an entirely new revelation of God, and entirely new encounter...most importantly, an entirely new meeting place.

Christ is the place for encounter God, for seeing him face to face. And this is in a body, through a body. In the spiritual sense, this Body is the Church. In a physical sense, this Body is the Eucharist, given as the source and summit of the very life of the Church. But this Body was also a man who walked this earth for thirty-three years and spoke to people, was heard by people, was seen and was touched.
(Maybe you had forgotten I was writing about touch... I almost did.)

No, Christ brings this element of God's love to us in a new and dynamic way that we could not have comprehended before. The imagery of nuptiality that St. Paul uses to draw the analogy of God's love for man and the love between a husband and wife summarizes this. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word..." (Eph. 5:25-26, emphasis added). And, "Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord" (Eph. 5:22, emphasis added). He says, "This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the Church" (Eph. 5:32).

Again, books have already been written on this mystery (many beautiful ones, by people much wiser and more learned than myself) and my point is not to enter into them here. Rather, I want us to reflect on the beauty and mystery of touch.

Touch is an encounter. It occurs at a place, on a body, that a person experiences. Whether it is a hand on your shoulder to encourage you before you face a crowd, or a quick hug to say goodbye, or a sure kiss from the one you love, touch says something, it signifies something. If nothing else, it is a more comforting promise of the meaning revealed in the touch, a deeper communication of what was meant to be made known. I can smile at you and you will understand my pleasure, but I can hug you and leave no doubt. The intensity behind our touch, positive as well as negative, communicates a level of our whole self that is embedded in the action.

To be perhaps less-than-tactful, if I have someone shake my hand at the sign of peace during mass who barely wraps their fingers around my hand and leaves enough space for all those germs that are inevitably jumping from my palm to theirs... well, let's be honest here, I don't feel like the touch they gave truly signified much wishing-of-peace to me. And I feel even less that someone wanted me to know the Lord's peace if I just get the head-nod of acknowledgement. Does this make the point? The firm grip of someone who says, "Peace be with you," or, "Christ's Peace," leaves me assured that they truly desire me to know that peace.

Perhaps a different analogy? When you meet someone you haven't seen for many months (or years) and embrace as if old friends, but you are given the "burp-the-baby" pat on the back rather than a friendly embrace... what is the encounter? One that communicates a less-than-comfortable knowledge of the other person. It says that there is not the same understanding that once existed. And if you were hugging someone you just met for the first time that day, you probably wouldn't be embracing them as you would a friend of five or ten years.

Interestingly enough, a point that is made by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae, albeit indirectly, and also a point that is then taken up by John Paul II in The Theology of the Body, this time directly, is the way that condoms and contraception also make a drastic change to the communication behind a touch. In the most intimate of human touch, within the bond of sexual union, the communication of the full love and desire of both lovers for one another is necessary and apparent. Much like the "not-quite-peace" or the "not-sure-hug," contraception is the barrier between the two that signifies a "not-quite-total-love." Again, this is not the point of this post so we'll have to return to this later, but I wanted to make that analogy. Touch, what you say through it and signify with it, means something!

Christ comes to us in the Eucharist as his very body. He allows us to approach him and touch him and to receive him into us. I think it is fair to say that if the source and summit of our faith revolves around the body of God, touch matters.

We therefore have a responsibility as people of faith to consider more deeply the touch we give and receive, and to recognize what we mean and signify with our actions, in hopes that we will come to better reflect the "glory of God [that] is man fully alive" (St. Irenaeus).