If only I could touch Him. . .

In his homily today, the new deacon at my parish made a powerful connection between the Gospel reading of the hemorrhaging woman and our receiving the Eucharist, a connection that I hadn’t heard or thought of before.  The story is a familiar one:  how a woman suffering for twelve years says to herself, “If I can just touch his cloak, I will be cured.”  She touches his robe and Jesus says to her, “Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.”

Every time I’ve read that story, I’ve thought to myself, “That is one lucky woman.  I wish I’d had the opportunity to do what she did and be healed.”

The deacon pointed out to us that we get an even greater opportunity than the hemorraging woman had – not just to touch Jesus, but to receive Him, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist.  When I heard that it was like the V8 commercial where someone gets slapped upside the head and is told, “You could have had a V8!”  Instead for me, I was slapped upside the head and knew that, “I could have gone to Communion with more faith!”

That homily will forever change how I approach the Eucharist.  I’ve known and believed in my head and in my heart that I am receiving Jesus, but I haven’t approached Him with the simple faith of the woman in the Gospel, who knew that an encounter with Jesus would heal her.  Perhaps it isn’t God’s will that I am healed from a physical ailment, but one type of healing is guaranteed each time we receive Him – the renewal of sanctifying grace, which we often wound through venial sin.  After all, the restoration of sanctifying grace, whether it is the strengthening we receive in the Eucharist, or our being brought back to life through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, is the best kind of healing we could ever receive.

Further reading: What effect does receiving the Eucharist have?