Matthew under the arm 68

[I have been away from the pilgrimage for well over a week. Maybe you're still there! Thank you]

Columba had dark rings around his eyes this evening. He was exhausted. 'What are you looking at?', he said to me as if he were being dismissive, but yet there was a note of gladness that I had recognised how he was feeling. I told him that he needed to rest. 'No! I don't need rest.... I had a terrible experience earlier today. I became angry and resentful when speaking to a priest. He sneered at my attempts to remind him of his vocatrion to prayer and to love. I was pompous and condemning in my tone. What I realised, of course too late, when the priest had long walked away from me, was that I was seeing in him that which was lacking in myself.' I took Columba's right hand and he took my left and I gently soothed the back of his hand. He reciprocated. After a while we laughed heartily. The touch and the laughter of healing....

Matthew 14:34-36....
Begging... Touch… When people starve, they beg. Prayer as begging we have come across before. It feels demeaning. That doesn't matter when we are desperate. Maybe Christianity is the religion for the desperate. Even those with no religious belief will touch something if it has a sacred history. Many of us are desperate to touch the famous. Touching Christ is the recognition of his presence in reality around me. Christ in flesh and blood. Touch Him!


Feel My Presence in reality around you



With someone you know, love and trust, hold each other's hands and touch them gently - massage them and explore them. This too is intimacy in prayer. It is loving. Then by yourself in silence become aware of your desire to beg - really beg God to answer your prayer. Feel it. Don't let analysis cloud your desperation. Imagine yourself reaching out to 'touch' Christ and 'feel' his strength and love 'massaging' you, loving you.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles