Our Hands, God’s Hands

(read slowly and prayerfully; play instrumental music in the background)

Sit straight up, feet flat on the ground, eyes closed, hands resting in your lap, palms up. Tune into your breathing…relax any parts of your body that feel tense. With each inhale feel the pressure build up in your chest…as you exhale feel the air sink into the depths of your stomach. Feel the tension move through your shoulders and arms, escaping through your fingertips……Become aware of the air at your fingertips, between your fingers, on the palm of your hand. Wiggle your fingers and experience their energy, delicacy, and intricacy……

Think of all the things that your hands have done in your lifetime. Beginning when you were a baby, your tiny perfect hands were the means by which you learned…learned to crawl…then to walk and balance yourself…hold things for the first time, feed yourself, wash and dress yourself. At one time your greatest accomplishment was tying your own shoes……

As you have grown older, what else have you learned to do? Think of the things you do every day—the essays you type, the basketballs you dribble, the math problems you carefully work out…the food you cook, the notes you scribble in class…the hands you shake, the artwork you create…all the kinds of work they have done, the tiredness and aching they have known, cold and heat, soreness and bruises……What else do you do that requires the use of your hands?…

How much hurt, anger and even violence have these hands expressed?…The fights they have gotten into…the doors they have shut…the phones slammed down… the drinks raised to your lips, to your already drunk body…the objectifying things done to others’ bodies, or that weren’t prevented from being done to you ……the joint held or passed…the people you have overlooked and failed to help…With the awesome power of these hands, comes great responsibility. Do our hands consistently do good? When have they caused pain, either to ourselves or to others?……

Our hands are not just for ourselves, but for others. Remember the tears they have wiped away, our own or another's, the blood they have bled, the healing they have experienced...Think of the loving embrace that forgives, the pat on the back of encouragement, the “high fives” and secret handshakes of solidarity. When have your own hands offered help to another, among your friends or in the greater community? Building a house or doing construction work in Mexico or in a poor neighborhood… offering food to those that are hungry… bringing a card to a sick neighbor…

What hands have helped you along the way…reached out and caught you when you were about the fall…picked you up after you have hit the ground? When in a busy crowd a friend reached out and grabbed your hand to make sure you did not lose your way or get separated from your group? Take a moment to reflect in gratitude for these people and experiences……

Our hands are from God and ultimately for God. How often have your hands been folded in prayer, both a sign of their powerlessness and of their power?… We come to these states of prayer in our times of gratitude and thanksgiving, as well as in our weakness and desperation. To make the sign of the cross, strike our breast, receive Communion, hold our head in our hands… hands opened in meditation, drawing in the power and strength of our Creator, and sending it forth

into the world…

Raise your right hand slowly and gently place it over your heart. Press more firmly until your hand picks up the beat of your heart, a rhythm learned in the womb from the heartbeat of your mother…Press more firmly for a moment and then release your hand and lower it into your lap very carefully as if it were carrying your heart. When you extend your hand to another, it is not just bone and skin, it is your heart.

Think of all the hands that have left their imprint on you—prints that can never be erased. Think of all the places that carry your hand prints and all the people who bear your heart prints…They are indelible and will last forever. It is in this sharing of gifts and communion of hearts that we are united with one another and transformed.

Without opening your eyes, extend your hands on either side and find another hand. Do not simply hold it but try to convey a message of friendship, concern. Let your hand speak to it and let it listen to the other…Try to express your gratitude for this hand stretched out to you in the dark…and then bring your hand back again to your lap. Experience the presence of that hand lingering upon your hand. The afterglow will fade, but the print is there forever…Whose hand was that? It could have been any hand; it could have been Christ's hand. In a sense, it was. Christ’s hands through human vessels. (Pause briefly, then read “St. Teresa of Ávila once said :

Christ has no body now but yours

No hands, no feet on earth but yours

Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”