First School Mass

MacKillop College Year 10 Mass
March 6, 2007

"These hands used to be strong. My dad was a farmer. He worked so hard althrough his life…" Words spoken by a daughter of a dying man I anointed last week..

Metaphorically the hand is power and strength. What a man can do is that which is in his hand or to which his hand reaches. To give into the hand of someone is to deliver into his power or possession; and to take out of the hand is to deliver…

• The picture of Amellia Taylor being held in the palms of the hands of her carer is a stunning reminder of our relationship with God who holds us in the palms of his hands.
• It is an image that we want to be in the hearts and minds of each person in this room today for it is the image of the carer and the cared. These are our rights and responsibilities for this year and for ever – to be people who extend care to those we meet and who receive the care that they have to share with us.

Human Hands of Jesus
For about 20 years Jesus worked in a small town carpenter's shop. His rough, calloused, strong hands were driven by excellence, patience, and skill. Jesus grew in His craft as He spent hours watching the hands of His father. Our Lord saw life through the eyes of skilled laborers and common people.

Helping Hands of Jesus
Remember when Peter walks on water. Then Peter starts to sink. Swallowing water Peter gurgles, Lord, save me! (Matthew 14:29,30) The hand of Jesus is there, locking on Peter's stretched hand, then pulling him with a gush of water strongly upright. Arm in arm they walk to the boat. See Jesus bolding a child on His lap. His hands are hugging and gentle as He affirms the eternal worth of a child in the Kingdom.

Divine Hands of Jesus
The hands of Jesus were active doing God's will. See the crowd's faces as Jesus touches the leper, and white skin comes alive. Those fingers of love touch the faces and eyes of blind men and they see!

His hands nailed on the Cross

How could the Hands of the Creator end up like this? The Carpenter from Galilee is outside Jerusalem hanging on a tree. His carpenter's hands are nailed to a wooden cross, as He dies with our sins. The hands of Jesus are good at repairing things: broken hearts and lives. His hands mean new hope. It's not over. His hand on you removes the limits — for of Him and through Him and to Him are all things (Romans 11:36). We are parts of His body . . . Christ lives in me (Ephesians 5:30; Galatians 2:20). You are Jesus' hands on earth. Let Him do His miracle work through you this year!

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At the end of World War II American soldiers quartered in a German village offered aid to the desolate people there. But instead of asking for food, money, farm equipment, the town people asked help in restoring a statue.

For years their proudest possession had been a beautiful statue in the town square. Now it lay shattered in many pieces. Could the Americans help them put it together again?

The task was difficult but, finally, the statue was repaired except for two missing parts that the soldiers were unable to find or replace.

Then the soldiers covered the statue with a silken material so it could be unveiled in a ceremony before all the townspeople, even though the statue was incomplete.

The mayor of the town pulled the cord, and the silken drape dropped from the statue: a handless Christ.

The townspeople stared at the sign which the soldiers had placed at the feet of the statue: “I have no hands. Won’t you please lend me yours?”*

*This story is from 1,000 Stories by Fr Frank Mihalic SVD