Woman touches holy garment, receives healing

Jesus responded to her because of her great faith. She
is a role model for many.

The story is recorded in the gospel of the woman who boldly touched Jesus' robe. She was immediately healed of a longstanding medical condition that had rendered her with more than mere physical inconvenience. She was a social and religious outcast. But Jesus had other plans. Apparently, even the clothing He wore was positively transformed by the inescapable effect of His holiness. And those effects were translated through physical contact.

On Sunday morning I witness something fascinating during our Liturgy. It transpired very quickly, during the Great Entrance, a solemn, reverent parade of sorts in which the soon to be transformed elements of Communion are both displayed to the congregation and also demonstrated to be offered from within it. It is a community event. But it also conjures up funerary images, and it's supposed to remind us of Jesus' own work on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. It is a holy moment. These elements that are inanimate now are soon to be alive, due to the influence of the God who transfigured Death itself.

I looked up during this procession (something I rarely do) just in time to see a member of our congregation reach out to touch our priest's robe as he passed by her.

It was a remarkably subtle motion, but visibly intentional. I won't identify this woman. I don't believe she wants to be identified. Indeed, I don't think she meant for anyone at all to see it. I was witness to what should have been a private moment. I don't even think she would want Father Michael Prevas to know.

So why am I nonetheless presenting it in a public forum?

Because of her faith.

Hers was an act that a decade ago I would have dismissed as vulgar superstition. What good would it be, I would have argued, to interact with an inanimate object, such as an article of clothing. Clearly, she knew of this story from the gospels, but this was more than a symbolic re-enactment. This was an involvement, a straining, a physical manifestation of a faith in desperation.

For what did she desire healing? I have no idea. And I'm hardly the type to be nosy enough to inquire. I'll leave well-enough alone. I'm also inclined to posit that she's one of those people who wouldn't read this blog in a million years, so her secret is apparently as safe with me as mine is with her. I know there are members of my congregation reading this, and I'm sure they'll understand my reasons for protecting her identity. It's no shocker at all that the woman in the original gospel story likewise remains anonymous, despite her powerful testimony.

Did this woman on Sunday receive healing? Did Father Michael feel power go out from him as Jesus had in the same situation? I have no evidence to answer in the affirmative to either of those questions. If either or both are indeed true, I'm sure it's a private and intimate spiritual matter between the two of them and God.

But what she taught me in that eye-blink of an instant is monumental. She revealed that the stories we read still belong to us, still define who we are. She reminded me that we should still reach, that we should still strive and strain and be bold, that we should still live with the hope that the power of God will manifest itself powerfully and dynamically and charismatically.

She reminded me that we're not done yet.

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