Pope Francis embraces Vinicio Riva after the general audience on Nov. 6, 2013
One of my first memories of Pope Francis: He was elected in 2013. And during that same year, just a couple of months after he was elected, he would have the Wednesday audiences where he would greet people in Italy. And one day there was a man there who had a condition, a skin condition, where he had a very deformed face and he had open sores on his face. And his face was really big and his whole body had lesions all over it. And I’ll never forget because the Holy Father, when he saw the man, he went right up to him, and he embraced him. He took his face in his hands, and he kissed his forehead. And the man said at that time, he said, “When the Pope drew close to me and hugged me tightly and he kissed me, he gave me a kiss on the face. My head was against his chest. And his arms welcomed me, he hugged me tight. Tight.” He said, “I tried to speak. I couldn’t.” And he said the emotion was so strong that at that moment, from his whole life of sorrow, rejection, it left him right there. All of his sorrows left him. He said that the hands of the Pope were so soft and gentle, beautiful. And later he thought about that, and he said, “The Pope didn’t think about whether to hug me or not. He didn’t know if I was contagious or not. But he caressed me all the same. And I felt his love.”
This man just died a couple weeks ago. And when I heard the Gospel reading, in the first reading, I couldn’t help but think of that memory so very early on with our Pope. I think that’s one of the qualities of Francis, is that he has been such a loving Pope, especially to those who are outcast, those who are poor. And we hear in the Gospel today the importance of touch. So, when this Leper comes to Jesus, he kneels down before Jesus and he says, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” And Jesus says as he reached out his hands and he touched him, and he said, “I do will it. Be made clean.”
We all feel like outcasts from different times in our lives. It’s different times that we grow throughout our lives and one of the things that is especially difficult is the need for human touch and affection. You probably all experienced this at least a little bit during the pandemic, right? We had to keep our distance from each other and sometimes even from our own family members. I think about people who died alone in hospitals and nursing homes. Their family couldn’t even go near them or touch them. When we’re not touched, we have a feeling of isolation. We too, feel like we’re lepers.
I know that one of the important things when a child is newborn, when a child first comes into the world, it’s so important for the mother and father to hold the child. Studies show that if the child is actually not held or touched within the first couple weeks or a month of their life, they’re very likely to die. Or actually to grow up with very difficult conditions. I remember when my nieces and nephews were born, my sisters, I think they called it kangaroo swaddling, something like that. They would hold the baby into their chest, skin to skin contact. Now the fathers do it too, they hold the babies right to their chest. Because that touch and that affection is so important.
One of our people recently went to the nursing home and she was distributing communion to the residents, and she would often kneel down before them. And one time after she had given the woman communion, she stood up and kind of used her hand on the chair for sturdiness, but her hand slipped. She kind of touched her leg, she said, “I’m so sorry I touched you,” and the lady said, “I can’t tell you the last time that somebody has touched me.” We need touch. There’s a mom I know that had a teenage daughter. And the teenage daughter was like every other teenage daughter, right? She was a little bit uncommunicative whenever she came home from school. And the mom was really struggling with it, she felt like she couldn’t connect with her daughter anymore. And the daughter just had nothing but attitude and anger and contempt for the mother. And so, she didn’t know what to do. She was kind of at her wit’s end. And she thought one day, I’m just going to try to hold her like I did when she was a child.
And so, one day her daughter came in and the mom said, “How was your day?” And the daughter didn’t, you know, just kind of ignored her and didn’t say anything to her. So, the mother went over to her daughter and she put her arms around her. And she said when you were a child, I used to hold you all the time. She said, “I just wanna hug you for a moment and if you don’t want me to, you can tell me not to.” She held her daughter. And the daughter never told her to stop. She held her daughter for minutes at first and then she felt her daughter’s whole body begins to rest. And then she held her daughter for fifteen or twenty minutes, just embraced her in the kitchen. Her daughter began to cry because she missed her mother’s love and affection during all this time. Her mother didn’t know how to connect with her. All it took was that physical touch to bring about the connection.
I remember when I went into the seminary, there was a priest at my first assignment, he gave the best hugs. Whenever I was really having a bad day or whatever, I’d go to confession to him. He was in AA, so it’s really big, they always hug each other, you know at the end of meetings. And so, I remember the first time that he gave me this big hug and I thought, ‘Wow, I don’t think I’ve never been hugged like that before.’ Loved like that before. There was another priest in the seminary who was very stern. And I was going to Africa that summer, so I was gonna be gone for the summer. And when I was leaving, he said take care of yourself. And he kind of got choked up and he gave me a hug and I thought, ‘I think this priest actually cares about me.’
And I think about children. I remember one time I was babysitting my nieces and nephews and I have a new rule for Uncle Mike. My rule is only one of you is allowed to cry at a time, because there was one time where they were fighting and two of them started crying and I didn’t know what to do. Like I could only help one of them. And so, I said, we got a rule. Only one of you can cry at the time and actually listen to me. One of them stopped crying. And the other one, I remember, I took her into the kitchen and I held her and I put her on my lap. She was very young then and I said, “I just want to hold you and if you don’t want me to, just tell me.” And I held her. I said, “I love you so much I just want you to know how much your parents love you and how much God loves you.” And she sat there and again, just let me hold her and affirm her for quite some time.
Think about spouses. There’s nothing more painful, I think, for spouses and no kind of more vindictive way to show your spouse you don’t like them, than to never touch them. I think about spouses sometimes withhold affection from each other because they’re mad or because there’s been years of hurt or unforgiveness. That touch is so important. Just like with the teenage girl or with one of my nieces and nephews, sometimes you may not even know how to talk about the things that are upsetting you, but you can hold each other and hug each other. You can embrace each other, and that physical connection will just show that you still have that love for each other. At every Mass we do that, we offer each other the sign of peace. And you know, that’s a time where we come together as the Body of Christ and we physically touch each other. Either we shake hands, we give each other hug, or if you’re a little uncomfortable, you just go like this.
When we anoint the sick and the sacraments, one of the things that priests are called to do, and we do that here with other people, is we lay hands on that person. We pray for their healing. Whenever somebody comes to confession, at the absolution, I always lay my hands on the person’s head and pray over them. So physical touch is important, and it’s necessary. It’s something that we all need. But it’s important to remember that other people need it too. It’s important to remember that especially people who are cast out, people who may not be attractive, and people who may have some kind of physical condition that scares us need physical touch. The poor, in general, people who are isolated, need physical touch.
And our touch, our embrace, our hug, it can be that physical manifestation of God’s touch here on earth. And so, I think as we come here together today, Jesus wants to touch each and every one of us. He wants to embrace each and every one of us. The whole reason we have the sacrament is that sometimes people say, why do I have to go to church? Why do I have to go to confession? We do this because God knows that we’re physical. He knows that we need human interaction to show his love. So, he wants to show his love for each and every one of you. I always like to say, as a priest, because I never know what to do with people in terms of your comfort level, you can always hug me. I’ll probably not hug you unless you ask me to, but I’ll always give you a hug. Just to let you know that you’re loved and that you’re cared for.
I just want you to take a few moments now. Think about that experience of touch for you, one of the times in your life when you have felt touched and loved, and that love has helped you to know God’s love. And then think of the people in your lives, people who you could embrace, people who you could reach out to, people who you could touch, just like Jesus. Because when the leper needed to be healed, Jesus reached out and touched him. He said, “I do, will it? Be healed.” He wants every one of us to experience his touch and to be healed as well.
