"Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him." (Mark 1:41)
In the thirteenth century, King Frederick II of Germany decided to conduct an experiment. He wanted to determine what language children would speak if never permitted to hear the spoken word. So he assigned foster mothers to care for fifty infants. The women were instructed to bathe and nurse the babies but not to fondle, cuddle, or talk to them. The experiment failed because all fifty infants died.
Not long ago, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world was scandalized to learn of conditions in a former Soviet bloc country regarding the care of orphans. Mary Carlson, a researcher from Harvard Medical School, observed an overcrowded Romanian orphanage where row upon row of babies lay neglected in their cribs. The staff was hopelessly overworked, so the babies were rarely touched even at mealtime. What struck Carlson was the silence in the nursery. There was no crying, no babbling, not even a whimper. Upon physical examination given at age two, Carlson found that the babies had unusually high amounts of a stress hormone known to cause brain damage. Growth was stunted; the children acted half their age.
What conclusions can be drawn from King Frederick’s failed experiment and the Romanian orphanage scandal? Babies who aren’t touched affectionately fail to thrive and in extreme circumstances die. It’s not enough to care for the physical needs of children. Touching and tenderness are critical to their survival.
A businessman enjoyed a pleasant conversation with the elderly woman beside him on a cross-country flight. As they talked, he learned that she was a childless widow on her way to visit a brother in his eighties. When they reached their destination and entered the airport, the businessman impulsively turned and hugged her. To his surprise, her eyes filled with tears. "I haven’t hugged a man since my husband died," she said.
Ever notice how often gospel writers seem to go out of their way to tell us how Jesus touched people – physically touched them. In today’s gospel from Mark, for example:
A leper comes to Him, falls on his knees, and begs: "If you want to, you can cure me," Feeling sorry for the man, Jesus stretches out His hand and touches him. "Of course I want to," Jesus says, "Be cured," And the leprosy leaves him at once, and he’s cured.
To appreciate fully the impact of this story, we need to imagine what it was like to be a leper in first century Judea when leprosy, or whatever the skin disease might have been, was considered highly contagious. Lepers were so feared and reviled that they were forced to live in total isolation, away from the community. Treated as "outcasts" cursed by God, they had to ring a bell, or call out "Unclean, unclean," as they walked along, to warn others of their approach. No one would go near them because to touch a leper made you ritually unclean, not to mention at risk of infection. Imagine what it must have been like to be suffering from a loathsome disease that was slowly eating away at your body, certain to cause an agonizing death, and completely cut off from community support. What stark loneliness!
But in defiance of social and religious taboo, and at great risk to himself, Jesus, moved with compassion, touches the leper who approaches him. Think what it must have meant to that poor wretched man not only to be touched by another human being, but also to be healed by that touch -- physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Popular author and lecturer, the late Leo Buscaglia, once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little girl went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When her mother asked her what she had said to the neighbor, the little girl said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."
The medical community is well aware of the therapeutic value of touching. Monitoring equipment can actually measure the effects of the healing touch of a nurse on a patient. The heartbeats of intensive care patients, for example, can often be stabilized when a caring nurse holds a patient’s hand. Effects are quantifiable. Is there any doubt that a physician’s bedside manner can help promote healing? Competency and medical skill are important, of course, but so too is the healer’s heart and attitude toward the patient.
Hugging can actually lift depression and promote bodily growth in children. It’s undisputed that there is a direct realtionship between the degree of physical closeness children experience and their physical and mental health. When our daughter Kate was a little girl and she’d bump or scrap her knee, she’d ask Gloria or me to kiss her "boo-boo." And kissing it made her feel better. I’ll bet that worked and still works to ease the hurt of your little ones too.
Touch deprivation, on the other hand, often leads to negative consequences like despondency, loss of appetite, apathy, and decline in efficient functioning. Furthermore, according to a study of 30 cultures, there is a positive correlation between the degree of violence and cruelty and the amount of tactile, sensory contact within each culture.
A psychologist has written, "Our need to be touched is as basic as our need for food. Without it, we get a kind of malnutrition of the spirit." "The worst disease isn’t leprosy," said Mother Teresa who cared for lepers on the streets of Calcutta, "It’s being unwanted, left out, forgotten." For the leper in today’s gospel, the appalling way he was treated by people, being shunned as the living dead, surely had to be as painful as the disease eating away at his body. That’s why Jesus healed not only the man’s body, but, just as importantly, he healed the man’s soul.
Ours is one of few societies where physical contact, even in family and with friends, oftentimes isn’t encouraged or celebrated. It’s natural for us to want to show affection, but for some mysterious reason, some people equate tenderness with sentimentality, weakness, unmanliness, and vulnerability. When I was growing up, in my large Italian family, not to hug and kiss was considered punishable behavior. My relatives subscribed to the Italian folk saying: "Pizzichi e baci non fanno buchi." "Kisses and pinches leave no scars." Those of you who saw the recent low budget blockbuster movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding could have been watching scenes from my childhood (but without the Windex.) If you were uptight about being touched and happened to attend a family gathering at my house, as in the movie, you would have been in for an unsettling experience! If you don’t believe me, just ask Gloria about the first time she met the Sciolino clan en mass.
Affection, non-sexual touching, is a tremendous resource of both physical and emotional wellbeing and is essential to growth in love. It’s free, you need no special equipment or talent, age is irrelevant, and it’s always available. To love we must let people know we care. The best way is literally to reach out and touch, to demonstrate love, as often as possible. How better to teach our kids how to love than to show them?
The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no buildings named after us, no monuments created in our honor. But that doesn’t lessen our possible impact upon the world, at least on our little corner of it, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like you and me to come along; hurting people who will appreciate our compassion, our encouragement, who will need our unique talents. People who will live happier lives just because we cared enough and took the time to share what we have to give.
An example? There are lonely people everywhere – in nursing homes and hospitals, in prisons, in hospice care, down the hall and down the street. Take a moment to telephone or drop in on someone who’s isolated by poor health, grief, or depression. Jesus’ ministry of healing, after all, continues through us -- his twenty first century disciples and kingdom builders.
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around, perhaps even to save a life. It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt. And exhilarating to realize that we can actually help heal people with nothing more complicated than an outstretched hand or a warm hug.
Jesus, out of love, reached out and touched the leper. And the leper was healed. You and I can be miracle workers too. It’s in our hands!
Anthony J. Sciolino
6th Sunday in Ordinary Time. February 16, 2003. (Cycle B)
Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46/77
Corinthians 10:31-11:1
Mark 1:40-45.