No Hands But Our Hands

A few days ago I was walking through an outdoor Station of the Cross and noticed something strange.  On the 8th station (The women of Jerusalem mourn for Jesus), I noticed something strange.  Someone had stuck a stick in a spot where the sculpted hand of Jesus used to be.  

I don’t know how long that piece had been missing but the stick did not feel right to see in Jesus’ hand.  So, I pulled the piece out and remembered the words of a prayer poem attributed to St Teresa of Avila which says:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

St Teresa of Avila (attributed)

As I looked at the handless Jesus, I especially resonated with that repeated phrase...no hands, no feet on earth but yours.  It could easily be a prayer lifted up on my own as well, “no hands, no feet on earth but mine.”  

I am honestly tired of the messages that some in the church send that imply that Jesus would be wielding a stick or a weapon.  While there was one moment where Jesus did use a weapon to overturn the tables of the moneychangers in the temple but that was the exception to the practice of what we see of Jesus.  

I also didn’t feel it was right to simply leave Jesus’ hand that way so I found a small flower and put it in there instead of the stick.  I think that’s a lot more like Jesus.