2nd. Sunday of Easter (C)
(Acts 5:12-16;
Revelation 1:9-19; John 20:19-31)
On thinking about today’s Gospel reading it might seem strange that the risen Jesus should go to such lengths to prove to the apostle Thomas that He was no ghost, that He was a real man of flesh and bones. He was glorified indeed -- had He had not just entered the room although the doors were closed? -- but He was nevertheless still recognizably real and objectively present to and with His apostles in the room:
After doing so much for Thomas, why does Jesus today refrain from doing anything similar for modern people to prove that He is really with us? We have to accept the truth about the reality of Jesus’ resurrection and presence to us, for us and with us, by faith ... how come that Thomas got so much proof?
First of all, notice that Thomas did indeed have faith. On touching Jesus’ wounds, he immediately declared his faith with those momentous words, My Lord and my God!
Thomas’ sense of touch only confirmed what his eyes saw; and with those earthly eyes he did but see the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side, he did not, could not, see God. It was the light of faith alone which enabled him to recognize the divine truth about Jesus and proclaim, My Lord and my God.
There is more to it, however, than that. Something happened to the apostles when Thomas was absent, as we heard in the Gospel reading:
Until then the Eleven had been a group of individuals, united indeed by their love of Jesus, but still a more or less somewhat disparate group of people capable of breaking up and each going their own way, as they in fact did when Jesus was apprehended. However, when the Risen Jesus appeared to them -- in Thomas’ absence -- He gave them a distinct identity and an exclusive mission:
He then bestowed on them the Gift of His own most
Holy Spirit, with power to forgive and retain sins, as you have just
heard. From that moment on, therefore, those
ten Apostles in the room with Jesus were no longer individuals devoted to the memory
of Jesus; now, they had all been formed into one, all of them looking towards a
common future and common endeavour for
Jesus; all now had become a perduring unity of unique significance and universal
consequence for mankind’s salvation: the Body of Christ, Mother
Church.
When Thomas refused to believe what his fellow Apostles and Mary Magdalen had said, he apparently knew nothing about any Church ... sent by Jesus as Jesus said He Himself had been sent by His Father; sent therefore to continue serving in the name of Jesus the mission Jesus Himself had inaugurated and served in the name of His Father:
Thomas, was not strengthened, drawn along, by any common feeling of sympathetic response as the Eleven had been when Jesus first appeared; Thomas was spiritually alone on first hearing their words about Jesus; and even at this second appearance of Jesus, Thomas still only knew his companions as individuals, as a familiar group of friends and disciples of Jesus, each with their personal and at times quite obvious limitations and failings which Jesus had occasionally needed to point out; he knew nothing, as yet, of the Church they had just become by Jesus’ Gift of His Holy Spirit to be with them on that very mission Jesus was committing to them.
That is why Thomas needed -- and was given by his Lord and God -- that extra help that we today are not offered, because we have the witness of the universal Church established by Jesus and which, though persecuted by Emperors, despised by Kings, mocked by ignorant and sinful people from the very beginning, still endures as the authoritative witness to the beauty, truth and power of Jesus in our days. In her we are become members of His very own Body, personally ennobled by His most Holy Spirit, and enabled to recognize, love, and fight for the faith which is union with Jesus for the glory of His Father, and for our salvation as His true children.
The Church, God’s Chosen People, is, as I have said, the Body of Christ, and ‘doubting’ Thomas did not experience that sympathetic Body-of-Christ-awareness-and-surging-response to Jesus’ presence, which is so very necessary for all of us and which is so very rarely even mentioned; Thomas only heard the apparently bare words of individual friends from whom he had, unfortunately, become separated.
Dear People of God, Mother Church is essential to our living with and for Jesus; she is the Temple where Jesus has promised to be -- for our finding -- until the end of time; she is the Spouse He will never desert, and the loving Mother of all God’s children born in baptism, through faith in Jesus. Her sacraments give us the food of life, and the word of Jesus -- alive in her -- is a light to enlighten the nations and glorify all God’s children. And, most importantly, though often ignored, our Catholic oneness in appreciation of and response to her beauty and truth is a divine gift and an infallible support.
Thomas’ longing for companionship in faith was indeed God’s prompting that would prepare him to embrace his second opportunity when Jesus once again appeared to all Eleven of His apostles. This ‘opportunity’ became the most decisive moment of Thomas’ whole life: his touching of Jesus’ wounds, and Jesus’ own words, prompted and encouraged him to make a total personal commitment of faith in the Risen Lord he had so long and faithfully followed.
Dear People of God, we Catholics rejoice in Mother Church and our Faith, two supremely wonderful and complementary gifts of God. Our faith is indeed a joy because it is SURE when so much in life is belittled, betrayed, and riddled by insecurity ... life-long love and enduring commitment and fidelity between man and wife is hardly expected today and, indeed, frequently mocked in so many presentations of modern life in society where personal gain and pleasure, public approval or even mere acceptance or tolerance, are more than enough to tip the scales against any prospective possibility of sacrifice. For intellectual, or even religiously-inclined people, Catholic faith can be deemed impossible because the world and our knowledge of it are changing ever so rapidly that no one can know what time may bring. One former learned Anglican acquaintance of mine, thus afflicted, could not say, when I asked him concerning the divinity of Jesus, what he might ‘believe’ in ten years’ time!
Consequently, for so many, instead of the sure light of faith guiding them towards the fulfillment of our human destiny and the abiding promise of a God-given future, there is only an individual, or at best shared, opinion; available, not indeed to guide onwards, but merely to hopefully justify one’s personal past and future choices. There is no love in-and-through life, just adventitious adaptations to whatever might seem the best available personal option at the moment in question.
Catholic Faith, because it is founded on the Word of God, is both sure and certain: it is essential for salvation because it alone can respond fittingly to the great Goodness of God and the sublimity of His promises made to mankind in Jesus. Even though, for example, one can still read past issues of national and international papers recounting the wonders witnessed by thousands at Fatima and Lourdes, even though pilgrims still today experience startling cures at those and similar shrines, nevertheless, every new generation wants to experience for itself to such an extent that, without such corroborating personal experience, the reports of others gradually lose compelling attention and are, inevitably forgotten or simply no longer taken into account. Faith alone can respond to and overcome such depradations of our human character by time and cupidity.
People of God, there has been so much truth and beauty brought to our attention today; however, the order of the day – so to speak -- is heart-felt gratitude to the God of our Faith for Thomas’ ‘blunt’ confession, and for the enduring apostolic proclamation of Mother Church, which afford us so much comfort and peace while, nevertheless, inspiring us with an ever-deeper longing for and delight in Jesus Christ our Risen Lord and Saviour.
