Beautiful hands

A friend of mine once spent a lot of time and effort to learn how to draw hands. When I asked why, she explained that there is much that can be learned from someone's hands, about what they do, about the kind of character they possess, about their sense of what's important.

Since today is the day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests, I thought I'd record once again the words of a poem that I came across (oh) many years ago now. I still have a copy of it sitting on my desk today ... just to remind me when I need to be reminded:

The beautiful hands of a priest
We need them in life's early morning,
we need them again at its close;
we feel their warm clasp of true friendship,
we seek them when tasting life's woes.

When we come to this world we are sinful,
the greatest as well as the least,
and the hands that make us as pure as angels
are the beautiful hands of a priest.

At the altar each day we behold them
and the hands of a king on his throne
are not equal to them in their greatness;
their dignity stands all alone.

For there in the stillness of morning,
ere the sun has emerged from the east,
there God rests between the pure fingers
of the beautiful hands of a priest.

And when we are tempted and wander
to pathways of shame and sin,
'tis the hand of a priest will absolve us
not once, but again and again.

And when we are taking life's pardon,
other hands may prepare us a feast;
but the hands that will bless and unite us
are the beautiful hands of a priest.

God bless them and keep them all holy
for the Host which their fingers caress;
what can a poor sinner do better
than to ask Him, 'Who choose thee to bless?'

When the death-dews on our eyelids are falling,
may our courage and strength be increased,
by seeing raised o'er us in blessing
the beautiful hands of a priest!