Year I Ordinary Time Week 16 Tuesday

In every mass, the priest stretches out his hand over the bread and wine to consecrate it to be
the body and blood of Christ. Priests use this gesture a lot. We stretch out our hand over a child
to be baptized to bless the child. We raise a hand while bestowing the absolution to a penitent in
confession. We lay our hands on the head of a sick person who requests for anointing. And in
faith we believe that God sends his Holy Spirit upon those on whom the priest stretches our his
hands.
This gesture is a very ancient gesture. In today’s reading, Moses himself stretched out his
hand over the sea as the Lord had instructed him, and a miracle happened: “[The] Lord swept the
sea with a strong east wind throughout the night, and so turned it into dry land.” And this
allowed the Israelites to march through the sea on dry land towards freedom.
A Jewish legend however says that when Moses stretched out his arm across the sea, the
waters of the Red Sea remained in place. They did not roll back as we are told in the Book of
Exodus. No path of dry land was formed as expected.
The Jewish legend further claims that it was not until the first Israelite leapt into the sea that
the expected miracle took place.
We are not sure what really happened but this Jewish legend underscores an important fact:
that is not the outstretched arms of Moses that save the Israelites from the Egyptians; it was their
faith that saved them.
So whenever the priest stretches out hand over the bread and wine, a child to be baptized, a
penitent to be pardoned, or a sick person to be anointed, the blessing the and sending of Spirit of
the Lord happens not by the outstretching of the priests hand but by the faith of the believing
community. And more importantly, we are reminded that rather than wait and hope for miracles
to happen in our lives, we take the initiative to deepen and strengthen our faith in the hope that
our deep and strong faith will allow God’s miracles to happen.