You're in Good Hands with Jesus

Father Joseph Singh, pastor of St. Justin's, once again did not disappoint in his Easter homily.

He told the story of a young girl who was embarrassed by her mother's grotesquely disfigured hands. Whenever her friends came over to play, she asked her mother to wear gloves to cover them.

The little girl grew up, and her mother became ill and died. At the wake, her body was displayed in an open casket, arms folded across her chest, gnarled hands clutching her rosary. As the daughter approached the casket with a pair of silk gloves to cover her mother's hands, her father stopped her.

"It's time you knew the truth about your mother's hands", he said. "She never told you this while she was alive, because she didn't want you to feel guilty. When you were a baby, there was a fire in your nursery. As she rescued you, your mother put down the flames in your crib with her bare hands. That's why they look the way they do."

Those hands - that moments before had appeared so hideous to the daughter - now seemed so beautiful.

The first thing Jesus showed his disciples after his Resurrection were his hands. The hands that still bore the piercings of the cross. The hands that had been disfigured while he was rescuing God's children from the fires of hell.

How beautiful those scarred hands had become. How beautiful they are.