“Oh, may you feel this touch”

By Dee Mahuvawalla, CS

The words in the title of this article are from Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Miscellaneous Writings. In her article on “Angels” she writes “   When angels visit us, we do not hear the rustle of wings, nor feel the feathery touch of the breast of a dove; but we know their presence by the love they create in our hearts. Oh, may you feel this touch.” [Mis. 306:23-26] Here the author invites us all to feel the soothing, comforting and healing touch.

This angelic touch is an answer to prayer. It is felt amidst chaos and confusion, loneliness and loss, pain and poverty, sickness or sorrow, regret or remorse, discord or destruction, bankruptcy or beaurocracy, tears or fears, and terror or trauma.  

Mrs. Eddy felt this healing touch when she opened her Bible at random, and read the account to Jesus healing of the palsied man. [Matthew 9:2] Upon reading this account Mrs. Eddy was instantaneously restored to life from the jaws of death. She writes in the textbook, “   When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I learned these truths in divine Science: that all real being is in God, the divine Mind, and that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and ever-present; that the opposite of Truth, — called error, sin, sickness, disease, death, — is the false testimony of false material sense, of mind in matter.” S & H [108:19-26]

The Bible is full of accounts of people “touched by an angel”. The following are some of the examples: an angel announces future of Ishmael at his birth. [Gen. 16:1-16]; Abraham entertains angels [Gen. 18:1-18]; Jacob wrestles with angel [Gen. 32: 1-32]; Daniel visited by Gabriel [Dan. 9:20-23]; Joseph advised by angel to protect Mary [Matt. 1:18-25]; Jesus ministered to by angels after temptation [Matt. 4 1-11], Jesus’ birth heralded by angels [Luke 2: 8-20]; Peter imprisoned, but released by angel [Acts 5:17-42]; John’s vision of angel with a little book [Rev. 10:1-11].

Right in the midst of our deepest despair, these angel visitants restore peace and provision – be it lessons from nature, a sermon or a song, “these crumbs of comfort” are timely and trusting. Mrs. Eddy writes   “Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love — be it song, sermon, or Science — blesses the human family with crumbs of comfort from Christ's table, feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty.” [S & H 234:4]. She further writes “The "still, small voice" of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound.” [S & H 559:8-10]

 Christian Science teaches us that angels are “God’s thought passing to man”

[S & H 581:4].

A stanza from a favorite hymn sums this up

“God's angels ever come and go,

All winged with light and love;

They bring us blessings from on high,

They lift our thoughts above,

They whisper God is Love.”  [Hymn 9:2]