Christ’s hands–and ours
Thus shall I bless you in my life, and in your name I shall lift up my hands (Ps 62[63]: 5). Thus shall I bless you in my life. In my life now, the one you gave me, not the one that I chose with others according to the world and down its many paths, but in the life that you gave me by your mercy so that I might praise you.Thus shall I bless you in my life. Why “thus”? So that I would attribute this life of praise to your mercy and not to my merits. And in your name I shall lift up my hands. Lift up your hands in prayer. Our Lord lifted up his hands on the cross so that our hands might be stretched out in good works because his cross gave us mercy. See how he lifted up his hands and offered himself as a sacrifice to God for our sake, and by that sacrifice all our sins were wiped away. Let us, too, lift up our hands in prayer, and hands lifted up to God, if they are active in good works, will never be confounded. (Augustine, EnPs 62[63], 13; PL 36, 755)
Oh, right, good works. It is not something that is mentioned often on this blog. I wonder why not.
I understand the point, but making it through analogies in hand positions seems a little forced, because they don’t quite work, at least for my literal mind.
- Our hands cannot be lifted up to God and active in good works at the exact same moment.
- Christ didn’t lift up his hands on the cross: rather, he stretched out his arms. The gestures are different, especially when you think of the photo of the “orans” posture in the thread preceding this one.
For me that passage has to be understood in spite of those limping images rather than with their help.
Claire: Perhaps you’re being a little over-literal here?
Perhaps. That’s how my mind reads. It could be an occupational bias.