Sacred Signs
by Romano Guardini

THE HANDS

EVERY part of the body is an expressive instrument of the soul.

The soul does not inhabit the body as a man inhabits a house. It

lives and works in each member, each fibre, and reveals itself in

the body's every line, contour and movement. But the soul's chief

instruments and clearest mirrors are the face and hands.

Of the face this is obviously true. But if you will watch other

people (or yourself), you will notice how instantly every

slightest feeling,--pleasure, surprise, suspense,--shows in the

hand. A quick lifting of the hand or a flicker of the fingers say

far more than words. By comparison with a language so natural and

expressive the spoken word is clumsy. Next to the face, the part

of the body fullest of mind is the hand. It is a hard strong tool

for work, a ready weapon of attack and defence,--but also, with

its delicate structure and network of innumerable nerves, it is

adaptable, flexible, and highly sensitive. It is a skilful

workmanlike contrivance for the soul to make herself known by. It

is also an organ of receptivity for matter from outside

ourselves. For when we clasp the extended hand of a stranger are

we not receiving from a foreign source the confidence, pleasure,

sympathy or sorrow that his hand conveys?

So it could not but be that in prayer, where the soul has so much

to say to, so much to learn from, God, where she gives herself to

him and receives him to herself, the hand should take on

expressive forms.

When we enter into ourselves and the soul is alone with God, our

hands closely interlock, finger clasped in finger, in a gesture

of compression and control. It is as if we would prevent the

inner current from escaping by conducting it from hand to hand

and so back again to God who is within us, holding it there. It

is as if we were collecting all our forces in order to keep guard

over the hidden God, so that he who is mine and I who am his

should be left alone together. Our hands take the same position

when some dire need or pain weighs heavily on us and threatens to

break out. Hand then locks in hand and the soul struggles with

itself until it gets control and grows quiet again.

But when we stand in God's presence in heart-felt reverence and

humility, the open hands are laid together palm against palm in

sign of steadfast subjection and obedient homage, as if to say

that the words we ourselves would speak are in good order, and

that we are ready and attentive to hear the words of God. Or it

may be a sign of inner surrender. These hands, our weapons of

defence, are laid, as it were, tied and bound together between

the hands of God.

In moments of jubilant thanksgiving when the soul is entirely

open to God with every reserve done away with and every passage

of its instrument unstopped, and it flows at the full outwards

and upwards, then the hands are uplifted and spread apart with

the palms up to let the river of the spirit stream out unhindered

and to receive in turn the water for which it thirsts. So too

when we long for God and cry out to him.

Finally when sacrifice is called for and we gather together all

we are and all we have and offer ourselves to God with full

consent, then we lay our arms over our breast and make with them

the sign of the cross.

There is greatness and beauty in this language of the hands. The

Church tells us that God has given us our hands in order that we

may "carry our souls" in them. The Church is fully in earnest in

the use she makes of the language of gesture. She speaks through

it her inmost mind, and God gives ear to this mode of speaking.

Our hands may also indicate the goods we lack,--our unchecked

impulses, our distractions, and other faults. Let us hold them as

the Church directs and see to it that there is a real

correspondence between the interior and exterior attitude.

In matters such as this we are on delicate ground. We would

prefer not to talk about things of this order. Something within

us objects. Let us then avoid all empty and unreal talk and

concentrate the more carefully on the actual doing. That is a

form of speech by which the plain realities of the body say to

God what its soul means and intends.