Rusted-on readers of Madonna, true believers in the worth of this excellent magazine, might recognise that this editorial has graced these pages previously in slightly different form. In early 2007 to be exact. I am not ashamed of this, because repetition is an integral part of the Ignatian tradition. In his ‘Spiritual Exercises’ Ignatius constantly invites us to repeat various prayer sessions for the purpose of taking our prayer to greater depth. Through repetition, we deepen and fine-tune our radar for listening to God and how he speaks to us in life’s circumstances.
A few years ago, my good friend and wise pastor at St Mary’s North Sydney at the time, Fr Peter Bernard Quin, suggested that it is helpful to follow the Easter events through the hands of Jesus.
TOUCH OF AN ANGEL
About the same time that I was pondering these words of wisdom, Riverview College was honouring one of its finest graduates, surgeon and war hero Dr Kevin Fagan. One of Kevin’s former medical students, Dr Bill Ryan of Nowra, wrote to me: ‘I had the extraordinary privilege of working under the guidance of Kevin Fagan, when a resident at Lewisham Hospital. He treated, among others, any severe burns cases. One such . . . went to sleep with a lighted cigarette and suffered extreme burns. Dr Fagan grafted the burns and I was with him when he came to change the dressings – he always did the first change himself. He completed the task and departed. When I returned to the patient, he said “Gawd, he’s got the touch of an angel – who is he?”’
‘The touch of an angel’. Those words seemed to sum up beautifully the life of Kevin Fagan both as a doctor and as a fine human being.
In Katie Meale’s doctoral thesis on ‘Leadership of Australian POWs in World War II’ for the University of Wollongong, she quotes Gunner Russell Braddon in his book The Naked Island writing about Major Kevin Fagan: ‘Not only did he treat any man needing treatment to the best of his ability, he also carried men who fell; he carried the kit of men in danger of falling, and he marched up and down the whole length of the column through its entire progress. If we marched 100 miles through the jungle, Kevin Fagan marched 200. And when, at the end of our night’s trip, we collapsed and slept, he was there to clean blisters, set broken bones and render first aid.’
Kevin Fagan certainly had ‘the touch of an angel’.
HANDS IN OUR LIVES
For all of us, I am sure, there have been deft hands to bring us into the world, hands to caress and comfort us, hands to bathe us, hands to discipline and point us in the right direction, hands to seek and discover our sicknesses, hands to soothe and calm us. Sadly, for some there have also been hands to incite fear and harm, hands to forge recurring pain and hurtful memories. No one can deny the significance of hands in our lives. We become those who touch us, as Joan Chittister would say.
When we begin the Easter journey with Jesus on Holy Thursday night, we see first of all his hands in service. We watch him kneeling on the floor, dipping his hands in a bowl of water and washing the dust and grime from his disciples’ feet. As he dries them with a towel, one senses how vulnerable Jesus, the king of hearts, really is.
A little later at the Last Supper, we catch the hands of Jesus in blessing. Jesus shares the bread of life with us, his friends, at our last meal together – breaks and blesses it. The act of blessing always brings illumination because it places everything in proper context. To bless someone (or something) is to acknowledge their part in life’s journey from God to God.
BETRAYED BY TOUCH
In the Garden of Olives, Jesus is betrayed by touch. The kiss of Judas is a lie. It signals not love and affection but instead blows the whistle on Jesus to his enemies, howling for his arrest by feral foreign soldiers. With typical impetuousness, Peter responds by slicing off the right ear of Malchus, one of the High Priest’s servants. Immediately, the hands of Jesus take the time to restore the ear to this man’s face.
When we think of all our medical friends, we give thanks for the power of their hands to restore health to the sick and broken parts of our bodies. Similarly, our soul friends and companions return life to our hearts with their healing touch.
We watch with dismay as the mocking soldiers tie the hands of Jesus and scourge his back. While they might bind his hands, they can make no inroads on his spirit. His commitment to the Father and to us, for whom he lays down his life, remains unfettered.
Even as his hands struggle to carry the cross to the hill of Calvary, we imagine ourselves alongside Simon of Cyrene. We place our hands next to those of Jesus and Simon in a desperate attempt to lighten the load.
AT THE SKULL
Horror of horrors, when we reach the place called The Skull, the soldiers thrust us aside and begin to nail the hands of Jesus to this rough-hewn wood. We look on, helpless and afraid, unable to comprehend the pain that Jesus is enduring on our behalf. When the cross is raised on high and those bloodied hands are stretched wide across the beam, we understand how much life hands can give us. The hands of Jesus can give no more.
In the hours of emptiness and disorientation following the death of Jesus, we miss the guiding touch of his hands. Then a little time later we hear that he is alive and has appeared to Mary and some of our friends. We cannot believe this – until Jesus himself shows up in our hiding place and offers us his hands again.
Yes, they are disfigured by the nails of the cross, but they have a new softness about them. Holding on to them brings us great peace and hope for the future. The hands of Jesus, his touch, give us courage and new life for the journey ahead. The hands of Jesus, our risen friend, are the hands of peace.
May we rest in the loving hands of God this Easter.
