Jesus said to Thomas, "Have
you believed because you have seen Me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Now Jesus did many other signs in
the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book.
What precisely was John’s thinking in that passage from today’s
Gospel reading?
Having just reported Jesus as saying: ‘Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have believed;’ he then himself added: ‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the
presence of His disciples that are not written in this book’.
It would seem that John is saying that he didn’t think it
necessary to tell us ‘many other signs’ accomplished
by Jesus in the presence His disciples because of Jesus’ words of solemn
admonition to Thomas:
Blessed are those who
have not seen and yet have believed,
But, if that is the case, why then, did Jesus perform so
many signs?
John appears to be confessing that he, Thomas, and the
other original disciples of Jesus, had been too weak in faith during Our Lord’s
public ministry, and especially at His apprehension and crucifixion by the
religious authorities, because they did not then have that key to a right
understanding of the fulness of God’s revelation – Our Blessed Lord’s
Resurrection and Ascension -- which is now ours through faith in Mother
Church’s proclamation of Jesus.
In his first letter John again emphasizes the supreme importance of resurrection-faith :
Everyone who has been born of God
overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world … our
faith. (1
John 5:4)
There he re-iterates his Gospel teaching, by saying that
whoever is one of those praised by Jesus for believing without ‘seeing’, such a
one has overcome the world; and his victory over the world is proved by the
fact that he is spiritually alive and strong-in-Jesus without any
requirement of worldly evidence. Indeed,
need for worldly corroboration could only signal a weakness in the spiritual
life of a true Christian.
Now, why does John so emphatically praise such a faithful response
to Jesus’ gospel? In order to teach all
of us just how sublime is our Catholic faith! Because, ultimately, it is God -- the Father
Himself -- Who introduces us to such faith, as John alone tells us
in his Gospel (6:43-45):
Jesus answered the Jews, "Do
not grumble among yourselves. No one can
come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they will
all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes
to Me.
Worldly evidence cannot
establish the spiritual realities of our Christian faith, it can only confirm faith’s
basic rationality -- for example, we have greater historical testimony for
Jesus than for Julius Caesar -- but the faithful, loving, embrace of Jesus’
Gospel can only come as a response to God’s inspiring grace enlightening our
mind, moving our heart, guiding and confirming our will.
John is not against us using our natural intelligence to grow in understanding of the Gospel of Jesus;
on the contrary, he expressly tells us that is why he wrote his Gospel:
These (signs) are written that
you may believe (that they may help you believe) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
For St. John, the supreme function of the Gospel message is
to provoke, awaken and promote our awareness of, our contact with and our response
to, God Himself; and that contact,
that response, though based essentially on the Gospel message, is not to
be limited to or constrained by the written words of the Gospel. The truth about Jesus, and indeed about God,
is broader, wider, goes deeper and higher, is more intimately personal than the
inspired but human words of the Gospels; that is why we Catholics accept the
Tradition of the Church and acknowledge development in the doctrine of Faith;
all, however, on the basis of, and never in contradiction to, the
original, Apostolic Gospel proclamation.
And that is also why the Catholic Church has always recognized, revered and
delighted in, her authentic saints as shining beacons and inspiring examples of
that possibility, open to all her faithful children, of wondrous personal
communion with God, beginning here on
earth and leading to its fulfilment through vision, as children of God in
Jesus, in our heavenly home.
And so. dear People
of God, we have come to the essential characteristic of our Christian
Faith. It is not simply a faith to be
learned, it is not a faith just to be obeyed; it is a faith to be learned, experienced,
loved, and lived: not only in the
sense of obeying its commands and fighting for its rights, but, above all, as a
communion with the Father, in His Incarnate Son our Lord and Saviour, by God’s great Gift, His most Holy Spirit. Mother Church today is still called to prepare herself to be inspired
by God, not indeed to write or proclaim a new revelation, but to understand yet
more fully and appreciate still more deeply the revelation originally and
finally given to her by God.
Mother Church is a mystical Church, where truth, rationally
elucidated, and emotional awareness born of God’s beauty-perceived, though most
gratefully appreciated are also necessarily subjected to the supreme authority
of the Apostolic Proclamation, especially the transcendent words of Our Lord
Jesus Christ.
All this is contained in those words of our Creed which
say: ‘we believe in one, holy, CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC Church’. Those words do not simply state that we
believe the Catholic Church to have been founded by Jesus Christ, established on
His Apostles, to be guided and preserved by His Spirit; they also mean that it
is only in the Catholic Church --
only in her atmosphere, so to speak -- that we are able to breath fully as Christians,
fully endowed and empowered to believe aright the fullness of truth about God and His will for the salvation of
mankind.
Whoever is begotten by God conquers
the world. And the victory that conquers
the world is our faith.
The Spirit is the one
that testifies, and the Spirit is truth.
Oh, you believing Catholics, rejoice in, and be grateful
for, the treasure you have been given!
John, the Apostle whom Jesus loved particularly, regards us today, as --
in some measure -- better placed in relation to Jesus than he, John, was in the
days of the Lord’s public ministry!! Because
your faith has been given to you at the instigation of the heavenly Father
Himself Who has P/personally called you and introduced you to Jesus. And that faith is being continually nourished
and purified -- even to this very day, at this very hour – by the Holy Spirit
of Truth and Love, in the womb of Mother Church.
Dear friends in Christ, you who are remnants --
faithful remnants -- of what was Western Christianity, you who are
possibly being persecuted and killed, mocked and defamed, in the midst of a
society become pagan; you who today are hearing strange things even in
Mother Church herself, words and teachings that would try to conform her to modern
society, you who remember those words of the Lord (Matthew. 10:28):
Do not be afraid of those who
kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the One who can
destroy both soul and body in Gehenna;
To all of you I say, let us all rejoice wholeheartedly in the Lord, for He is risen today, One of us, risen for the glory of the Father and for the salvation of all believers.
