In the second of his articles on life and faith as a deafblind priest, Cyril Axelrod explains how he now sees God through his senses of smell and touch.

Many years before I became totally blind, I used to love going for a long walk in the countryside and watching the wonders of nature – evergreen plants and trees, the wild world full of different colours, the placid lake with ducks swimming on it, the birds flying in the blue sky and so forth. I could not hear the sounds or songs, but I experienced that my sight was God's touch which vibrated throughout my body and spirit.

After becoming totally blind a few years ago, it was an explicit change of my experience in God's touch. Naturally, blindness can be an experience of abandonment or loneliness. But, in fact, the power of God never left me. It transmitted into a different way of seeing God through my senses of smell and touch.

A great amazement came to me when I went for a walk in a lovely garden with many different types of blooming flowers and fresh herbs. The fragrances filled my lungs with a sense of God's power of love. The different shapes of the flower petals and leaves gave me the mystery of God's touch.

At times, the blindness is my lifetime struggle and it leads me to feel down. But through my faith I pursue to walk in the garden as it is always uplifting for me because God never abandons us in times when life is changing, like when I lost my sight or hearing.

Sometimes when I cannot go out on account of the weather, I spend time inside holding the holy host – the Body of Christ. I place my hands on it and it signifies my touch on God within my darkness. It is like a stone turning over, turning my inner conflict to inner peace though faith. This gives my imagination an idea of how Jesus touched deafness and blindness. The wealth of touch stays in a human life no matter what comes into our lives. Faith always has an importance to a human being because it knots the bond of trust and faithfulness between God and us.

Faith cannot be seen with a human eye or heard with a human ear, it is simply the wealth of touch of God without expressing a single word but connecting with Him with a meaningful spirit.

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