One day a teacher asked his pupils to write in their paper the Seven Wonders of the World. The pupils unanimously answered the following: 1. Egypt’s Great Pyramids, 2. Taj Mahal, 3. Grand Canyon, 4. Panama Canal, 5. Empire State Building, 6. St. Peter’s Basilica, and 7. China’s Great Wall. However, the teacher noticed that a young girl was uneasy as she was not yet finished with her paper. So he asked her: Are you not yet done with your list? The girl responded that it was not easy as there were many. But the teacher insisted: Just give us seven so we can check if they are correct. The girl then replied: “The Seven Wonders of the World are the following: 1. To see, 2. To hear, 3. To touch, 4. To taste, 5. To feel, 6. To laugh, and 7. To love.” And then the room was filled with silence.
Indeed, our senses are wonders of the world which we forget to appreciate. They are very natural to our daily existence that we forget about them. Yet we cannot live without them. They are too important and vital that without them our world would be blue. Among the senses, the sense of touch is very fundamental in human relationships. Human touch keeps us closer to our friends and loved ones. We usually touch the persons whom we love and appreciate. On the other hand, we never dare to touch the persons whom we dislike.
In the gospel, Jesus touched the man who was deaf and mute. He made use of the sense of touch to bring back to the man the dignity that was deprived of him. As deaf and mute, the man was cast out of the society that people would ignore him and would not care for him. Nobody would look after him; nobody would touch him. The man who was deaf and mute became nobody in the society as he was rid of his human dignity. What Jesus did when he called for Him to help him was to touch the man. With touch, Jesus connected the man to Himself and to society. From then on, the deaf and mute realized that somebody was willing to touch him, to care for him, and to help him. When he was touched by Jesus he felt that he too was important; that he too was an ordinary person with dignity of a human being who was worthy to be touched.
Like the deaf and mute, we too have our own personal problems and miseries. We feel that we are not understood by others, by our friends, workmates, classmates, and even relatives. We feel that we are alone and lonely. In times like this, we must do what the deaf and mute did. He went to Jesus to be healed and he let himself be touched by the healing hands of Jesus. We too must go to Jesus and ask Him to heal us with His healing touch. Let us beg Him to touch our lives so as for us to realize the importance of our dignity and life.
Today, in our present society that is threatened by the pandemic, a lot of people also have lost their sense of dignity because of the loss of job, loss of friends, loss of financial stability, and loss of hope. They feel that nobody cares for them and that just like the deaf and mute in the gospel, they feel that they are outcasts from society. We must be Jesus’s to them. Jesus calls us to extend His touch and love to these needy people through our helping and caring hands. Let us never doubt in helping the needy people for they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Moreover, we have to remember what Jesus said: Whatever you do to the least, you do it to me. May we always see Jesus in their faces and may we touch them with our helping hands so that their needs may be secured and that we too may be transformed by touching Jesus in them.
TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
(Green) Cycle B/Year I (September 5, 2021)
Is 35:4-7/Jas 2:1-5/Mk 7:31-37
