And nothing can be harder to reach - or touch - than that same baby grown into an adolescent! And yet - and yet - even during arguments in which nothing seems to be settled, it is still so healing to touch the other, to lightly touch a hand, lightly grasp a shoulder. Touch is Tender Loving Communication, to keep relationships healthy and alive.
If we are miracles from the moment we're conceived, how can we live out our "miracle-ness" in our daily lives? Jesus, God in the flesh, came as a human being so that, once again, God could touch the human beings God had created. Jesus didn't come just so that we could worship him - Jesus also came to show us how to be perfectly human. Jesus knows that nothing on earth communicates Love and Healing like human touch! He touches the outcast leper, the blind, the deaf, the dumb. At his Last Supper, he kneels and washes his apostles' feet; often, when that ceremony is repeated in Church services today, the celebrant kisses those feet that he's washed. Touch is redolent with Equality, and Humility. We are One in our humanity when we touch another. I think of our parish food pantry where workers interact with clients by helping them choose and pack food; I hope their fingers gently meet as food and bags exchange hands.