I was a math-phobic high school
freshman. My fourteen-year-old self
enjoyed and excelled in social studies, language, and art classes, but was much
more hesitant with to quadratic equations and trigonometry. In the evenings, I settled into the living
room couch with my heavy textbook, notebook, pencil and graphing calculator to
tackle math homework. I sat next to my father, who offered me patient
assistance with my polynomials. Each evening,
I grew more confident as I went along with the assignment, needing less and
less help from him.
“You don’t really need my help,”
Dad told me once as we sat side by side while I worked through a
page of Algebra I problems. “You just
need my shoulder.”
“Dad’s shoulder” became our
shorthand for the reassurance of his physical presence beside me, calming my
algebra anxieties. He was right: for the most part, I didn’t really need much
assistance with the math itself, but his quiet accompaniment
bolstered me, especially during my first weeks in high school.
I remember the powerful presence of “Dad’s
shoulder” in the preparation for Christmas, the coming of Emmanuel, God with us. The
formal title of the celebration we prepare for in Advent is “the Feast of the
Incarnation.” Incarnation means
enfleshment. It’s the same Latin root as
the Spanish word for meat, carne. At Christmas we celebrate God becoming human,
flesh, meat. God, in Jesus, has skin in
the game. Christians worship a God
present not in abstract philosophical ideas or solely through sacred
texts, but in human form.
Gina and I learned at a lecture by
Fr John Vidmar, OP about the particular significance the Incarnation has for us
Dominicans. St. Dominic preached against
the Albigensian heresy’s strict dualist ideas.
For the Albigensians, matter was bad, spirit was good. The body was bad, the soul was good. Earth
was bad, heaven was good. In contrast,
St. Dominic preached the Gospel, emphasizing the goodness of creation. It is said that Dominic walked barefoot and
singing – I like to imagine him glorying in the beautiful French countryside,
the pleasurable exertion of his muscles as he traversed the Piedmont, the
simplicity of a hearty meal after a day of walking and preaching. In contrast to the Albigensian heresy which
denied the body, Dominicans have inherited a tradition which appreciates it and
affirms the Incarnation. The body is not
an impediment to encountering God, but rather a gift which mediates our
encounter with God.
These Advent musings on the Dominican
appreciation of Incarnation took on another dimension after hearing my co-novice
Gina, wonder out loud about using touch in prayer. She coined the term “tactus divinus” – holy touch. In one of our classes, we’d studied lectio divina (literally “holy reading”)–
meditatively praying with Scripture. I
had facilitated a reflection day which included prayer prompts on visio divina – (literally “holy
seeing”). So, Gina said, why not tactus divinus?
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| Jeannine Pitas prays with a mosaic of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (photo: Rhonda Miska). |
Both Gina and I enjoy spending
reflection day time at the Basilica Cathedral, which is just a short walk from
the CDN and is filled with stunning religious art which inspired Gina’s
reflection on tactus divinus. The first time I attended Mass there, I was deeply
moved to see a woman praying with great reverence before a mosaic image of Our
Lady of Perpetual Help. Her arm outstretched, she had her hand flat
across the Mary’s heart. It was as if
she connected her own unspoken intentions to Jesus and Mary in that image,
transmitted not through words but through touch.
That same day at the basilica, I
walked past a large bronze statue of the Pieta – Mary holding the crucified
body of her Son. Another woman had her hand
in Mary’s hand and she stood, head bowed, in silent fervent prayer. It was a moment of great reverence and
intimacy. The woman united her grief with Mary’s grief.
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| "Pieta" at the Cathedral Basilica in St Louis (photo: Rhonda Miska) |
After she left, I stood where she
stood, and placed my hand in Mary’s hand – still warm from the woman’s touch. I prayed for the mother of Heather Heyer, who
had recently been killed by a white supremacist in Charlottesville, and for all
mothers grieving children lost to violence.
Since that day, I realized there are several places on the statue where
the metal has been rendered shiny by touch: not just Mary’s hand, but the
wounds on Christ’s side, hand and foot.
The Basilica Pieta statue has been a place of tactus divinus prayer not just for me and the woman I witnessed,
but for many, it seems.
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| "Pieta" detail (photo: Rhonda Miska) |
No image, mosaic, icon, or statue
has power in and of itself, of course. As
incarnational people, though, tactus
divinus connects with our transcendent God through our
senses, not just through words and ideas. Visual art that we can engage with
our own bodies can draw us in to prayer not just with our intellect and heart,
but with our flesh. Like my father’s
shoulder which quelled my algebra anxieties, tactus divinus gives a reassuring felt sense of God with us. And tactus divinus connects us viscerally to
the astonishingly good news of Christmas: God is present to us in the
Incarnation of Jesus, and present to us in the goodness of our own bodies,
created in God’s image.
From all of us at the CDN, we wish
you a joyful celebration of the Feast of the Incarnation.
