RBWords

     Celebrities know well the power of "touch."  Their fans will do anything to get an autograph or get close and especially to "touch" the celebrity.  It is said that Bl. Pope John Paul II had to stop wearing cufflinks on his shirt because people were literally pulling them off if they could get close enough to touch his hand!  The picture of Pope Francis embracing a disabled child at one of his first public audiences went around the world!  He also prayed over a person at an audience and immediately the press claimed he had done an exorcism!  (Not so!)  In the Acts of the Apostles [5:15] people laid their sick and crippled on the road where Peter would walk so that his shadow would fall on them!  Today's gospel scripture presents us with a story within a story and it is the former that catches my attention every time.  The woman's faith in Jesus impels her to get through the crowd just close enough to touch the "tassel" on his cloak!  [For a more elaborate form of this story, go to Mark 5:21-43 - Matthew has "edited" it down to basic details.]

 

     I have told the story of the woman in the vestibule of the parish church where I was pastor.  I had invited her and her companion to join the congregation and she refused.  When I said, "But the church is gathered inside," she responded, "The church is gathered out here, too!."  That shut me up for good on asking people to move up closer.  It may be that the vestibule is only as far as their faith will allow.  Jesus will know it and respond.  Many is the time I have been grateful to see a college student lurking in the vestibule during Mass, knowing I had simply met him or her on the campus and invited them to come.  Zealous ushers have to be trained to spot the "tassel touchers" and leave them alone!  Jesus will know they are there!  AMEN