|
|
|
|
Second Sunday of Easter 2017
|
|
A Doubting Thomas
|
|
A small child looks at a stove. It has been turned off
but is still quite hot. She has been told the word several times —
"hot." It does not really mean much, because it is only a word — a
sound that signals something Mother does not want her to do — so she
reaches out, touches the stove, and instantly jerks back trying to rub
away the sharp pain. She says clearly and unmistakably "hot." Suddenly,
"hot" means something. It is no longer a word, a mere sound, but an
experience and the experience will be internalized and remembered. The
warning need no longer be repeated. Why couldn't the child have known
this beforehand? Why wasn't her mother's experience and warning enough?
Why must an idea be tested by one's own experience? This is not just
the characteristic of a child. Not many of us accept someone else's
reasoning very easily. We are quite capable of doing our own thinking
and testing. Parents are often confounded by this problem especially
with maturing children who seem to have an insatiable desire to try
things for themselves rather than to depend upon the word or experience
of their parents.
|
|
I have always felt sorry for Thomas in our Gospel. His
fault was what we, in our scientific age, would call a virtue. He
needed evidence he could test for himself and we see him move
impressively from disbelief to genuine faith when Jesus appears and
offers him the proof he has asked for: "put your finger in my wounds and
your hand in my side." The Gospel does not say that he did this; in
fact the Evangelist implies that he did not. Without touching Him
Thomas cried, "my Lord and my God."
|
|
But you can say, "so what?" "What is the big deal?"
After all, Jesus risen was standing in front of him. Thomas could see
his hands, why did he need to touch Him? He had as much proof as the
rest of the disciples a week before. But seeing is not always believing.
The cry of Thomas goes beyond the evidence. Yes, he had seen the risen
Jesus, but still a chasm stretches between seeing someone risen from the
dead and exclaiming "My Lord and my God!"
|
|
A few weeks before, when Thomas had seen Lazarus walk
out of his tomb, he did not call him "my Lord and my God." St. Paul says
that no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Nor can
one say Jesus is God save by the Holy Spirit. In the Gospels, we hear
Jesus called Rabbi, Messiah, Prophet, King of Israel. Now you hear
Thomas address Him in the same language Israel used to address Yahweh,
their God. Thomas utters the title reserved for God alone, "my Lord and
my God." This language is used only for divinity. At that critical
moment, Jesus would have said to Thomas what he said on a similar
occasion to Peter, "Blessed are you for it was not flesh and blood that
revealed this to you, it was my father in heaven."
|
|
You and I obviously live in a time that does not see
the risen Christ face to face. It is not that Christ is removed from
us — remote from us — far from it. He is present in the word and in the
broken bread. He is present — as he promised — where two or three are
gathered in His name. If we love Him, He told us He and his Father will
make their home with us. The problem is that we cannot see Him, we
cannot touch Him as we see and touch so many others we love. And this
tests our faith. There may be times when all we experience is His
absence.
|
|
But never having seen the risen Christ, we still
exclaim on bended knee — "My Lord and my God!" No wonder Christ said,
"blessed are those who have not seen but yet believe." The Christian
story does not end with that exclamation. Matthew's Gospel lays a
frightening warning on the lips of Jesus: "Not everyone who says to me
Lord, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven but the one who does the will of
my Father." Not everyone who confesses "my Lord and God" will be
saved. For all its unparalleled importance, sheer faith is not enough.
|
|
St. James asks us, "what does it profit you to say you
have faith but not works? Can faith alone save you? If a brother or
sister is Ill clad and in lack of daily good and you say to them, go in
peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for
the body, what good is that?"
|
|
Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. A
living faith is a loving faith that forces you out of your small self to
help the hundred hungers of the Human Family. In your own life's
journey, you will meet thousands of women and men, people of all kinds.
|
|
The Christian question is not what will you see with
the eyes of your body but rather what will you recognize with the eyes
of your faith? Will you be able to see divinity in humanity or will
seeing keep you from recognizing? Will the grime and the grit blind you,
will the cancer or Alzheimer's, the ugly and the spiteful — all those
very human things that make for difference and indifference, for
hostility and hatred — prevent you from recognizing your risen Lord, not
only in the broken bread but also in the breaking heart, the broken
body, the broken mind?
|
|
Your faith is not merely a matter of mind and memory.
The creed you will shortly confess does summarize much of what you
accept about God's word — a maker of heaven and earth, a God man
crucified and risen, a spirit, the giver of life. But to come alive to
your creed, your faith must move beyond brain and lips. Faith is your
whole person given to God. Living faith is an act of love.
|
|
My friend, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus,
our hearts too will burn within us — not only when the scriptures are
proclaimed, not only when common bread becomes the Body and Blood of
Christ but also when we recognize the risen Christ in those around us.
|
|
Many things on this earth are precious, some are Holy.
Humanity is Holy of Holies. Because you believe in the Christ you
have not seen, you will learn to love and serve the Christs you see
every day and they are sitting all around you.
|
|
Yours in Christ,
|
|
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment