I admit it. I cannot deny it. I love The Three Stooges. Moe, Larry and Curly are my heroes. I fell in love with them as a kid, watching their short films on the Paul Shannon show on WTAE in Pittsburgh. My “eclectic personality” (aka crazy) started with them. God used my devotion to the Stooges to touch with compassion a little boy at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital where I ministered for 27 years. This six-year-old boy had frizzy, curly hair like Larry. He was a beautiful-looking child, like a seraph angel in an old church painting. Sadly, life was not beautiful for him. This innocent child had AIDS. The boy contracted the disease when conceived. This was 1984. Everyone was freaking out about AIDS because many didn’t know what it was or how it spread. Some believed you could get AIDS just by touching an infected person.

When I visited this boy, I had to dress up in an isolation gown and wear special blue gloves. The very name of the gown depicted the sorry existence of this child. He was isolated. Do not touch. Unclean. The hospital staff did everything they could to make his life more tolerable, to bring him a ray of joy to dispel for a small moment the sorrow surrounding him. What tore my heart was that he couldn’t understand why life was treating him so cruelly. Why do I have to stay in this room all day? Where are my mom and dad? (They were too ill to visit.) I never saw him smile. I rarely saw him speak. It was like the soul was sucked right out of him.

Then one day, God burst forth with His touch. I always wore colorful suspenders to offset my black attire. I had over 100 pairs of them. Many of them depicted cartoon characters like Mikey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny and even the Tasmanian Devil. I also had a special pair (my favorite) the faces of Moe, Larry and Curly. When the boy saw them, his eyes lit up, he smiled and laughed. The nurses in the room were as shocked as I was. For the first time, he was happy. He yelled out the signature Curly call, “Woo, Woo, Woo!” I responded in kind. I proceeded to do the Stooge routine like the bonk on the head. He ate it up. I let him bonk my head, which thrilled him to no end. Unbeknown to us, he was watching The Stooges on TV like I did as a child. The nurses asked me, “Fr. Mike, do you have any tapes of their movies? I responded, “Soitenly! I have all 190 of them.”

From then on, a TV and VHS player were set up in his room, awaiting my visit. I explained to him how Moe did the eye pokes and face slaps in a way that hurt no one. I never really watched the films during our “Stooge-athons.” Instead, I looked at the smile on his face. Within a few weeks, he went to Heaven. The little boy and God can now smile at each other forever. It’s ironic that the last Stooge film we watched was entitled, “Bedlam in Paradise,” where Shemp dies and becomes an angel.

Who would have thought that God would use The Three Stooges to touch a sad little boy with happiness. I believe when God heals, He restores the entire person, not just the body. He heals their soul, mind and heart as well. Jesus could have healed this leper from a distance. Jesus wasn’t physically present when he healed the Centurion’s servant (Mt 8), the royal official’s son (John 4), or the woman’s daughter possessed by a demon (Mt 15). Lepers were never allowed to be touched. They wore a bell to warn others to run away. Jesus knew that to fully heal this leper, He had to touch him. By this touching, Jesus was saying to the leper, “You are not an outcast anymore. God is not afraid of you. God wants to take away your misery. Be now fully alive!” Jesus left His Divine f ingerprints on this healed man’s flesh. In ancient days, a fingerprint impression was put into soft wax to seal a deal when adopting a child. When Jesus touched the leper with His fingerprint, He was declaring, “You are now a child of God.”

God has chosen you to be His hands. Go out and touch someone with God’s fingerprints through your hands. Impress upon a suffering person God’s fingerprint of love. Touch them as Jesus would touch them with your hands of compassion. Be the healing they need.

There is a story of a wealthy woman who wanted to write a check to Mother Teresa to support her ministry to the poor. Mother Teresa said, “No. I don’t want your money.”

The woman insisted that she take the money. Mother continued to refuse. The wealthy woman asked, “Then what can I do to help?”

Mother Teresa took the woman by the hand and led her to a shelter. There lay a hungry, dirty child.

Mother told the woman, “Take care of her.”

The wealthy woman did something she never had to do. She filled a basin with water and bathed the child. She prepared some cereal and spooned it into the child’s mouth.

This encounter changed her life forever. The poverty of this child brought her the wealth of knowing sacrifice for another. Money could not buy that.

God will call you to touch others in the same way. Leave God’s fingerprints on them. And when you get to Heaven, watch out. You’ll hear a little boy yell, “Woo, Woo, Woo,” bonk you on your head and throw a pie in your face. Blessings … Fr. Mike