What it means to touch Christ was taught to us today by the woman afflicted with an issue of blood: for when she touches the fringe of Christ's garment, she then strikes upon the secret of the divine heart, and by a theft of faith she snatched the sum of power from the very edge of the fringe. Happy fraud, which won the reward of salvation and straightway removed the loss of her shame! The reading of the Gospel lesson proves this: 'Behold,' it says, 'a woman who had suffered a flow of blood for twelve years, coming behind, touched the fringe of his garment, saying within herself: If I do but touch his garment, I shall be made whole' (Matthew 9). In hard sicknesses the force of pain often gives counsel; in desperate cases necessity is often the teacher; suffering itself finds for itself the medicine.
Hence it is that the woman found how she might relieve her shameful wound, so that she might intimate by the silence of faith what she could not intimate by public outcry, and might reach the heavenly physician by the secret way of the spirit, to whom she could not attain by the open path of the flesh. The kindness of the healer gave her great boldness, but the necessity of her shameful sickness took away her confidence; the greatness of her pain compelled her to approach Christ, but the foulness of her ulcer would not let her come to Christ. Thus the woman, wavering, and with faith's counsel trembling, chose rather to be judged concerning her faith than to perish thus by her foul wound. She came behind, and touched the fringe of his garment.
For she knew that God is neither defiled by touch, nor offended by sight, nor exasperated by smell, nor wounded by hearing, nor stained by human thought. For if the sun touches dung and yet is not defiled by the dung, how much more does the Creator of the sun touch all things and yet cannot be defiled by base contacts? And if a physician, when he handles the pus of wounds, when he tends the shameful parts of the body, counts it not an injury but an honour: how much more does God reckon it no injury when, in healing, he looks upon our wounds, when he touches them for a remedy, when he visits them unto salvation? The wounds of sins, not of pains, offend the sight of God; the diseases of crimes, not the sufferings of bodies; the corruption of vices, not the flowing of the bowels.
He who is held to be a willing agent in his sins is held against his will in his sicknesses. Hence it is that the sinner receives punishment, but the sick man receives care. The woman, then, conscious not of will but of pain, not confounded by crime but confounded by sickness, came behind so as to avoid the eyes of the crowd, not to shun the sight of Christ; she wished to be unknown by the peoples, not by Christ; she strove to hide, not from God, but from men: because only by God alone could she, hiding, be seen, be heard while silent, be healed while concealed. She came and touched the fringe of his garment. For she believed nothing in Christ to be least, judged nothing to be extreme; because neither is God diminished in the man, nor is his power weakened in the fringe, nor is the heavenly nature altered by the functions of the limbs.
Hence it is that the woman came through the back to the face, penetrated the inward parts through the garment, and through the fringe touched the summit of the head. Nor is this without a mystery; hear the prophet saying: 'Like the ointment that runs down to the edge of his garment' (Psalm 132). You see, brethren, that into the fringe of this garment has passed the whole fullness of the divine anointing, the whole power of the divine head. Knowingly, therefore, the woman strove to reach the sacred fringe of Christ, that from the hidden mystery she might take medicine for her wound. Brethren, this woman is great and exceedingly to be marvelled at, who in knowledge overcame the teachers of the Law, in sacrament surpassed all the Jews, in faith went before the apostle.
For Judaea, with her scribes and doctors, wholly despised God in the body: the apostle Thomas, in order to believe that Christ was God, thrust in his hands, put in his fingers, laid open the wounds; and in order to believe Christ, he compelled Christ to suffer again (John 20). But let us inquire with spiritual understanding what person this woman represents, whose type she prefigures, whose image she presents. Who is she whom her own inborn blood, her natural weakness, her original disease, thus led to the causes of death, to a deadly wound, to the straits of a foul sickness?
And who was so befouled with vices, disfigured with crimes, wounded with secret wounds, that no art could cure her, no eye alone could bear to look on her, no decency could endure her, nor could the Law itself avail to cleanse her; indeed, whom the Law had commanded to be barred from the temple, forbidden the sacred things, kept from all holy places: and whom it had so pronounced unclean, that whatsoever she touched should be held unclean. This, brethren, this is the Church, which, wounded by the sin of the first man, was flowing wholly with blood, and by origin was running wholly down into death.