If you were to ask me whom, of the twelve, is my favourite apostle,
I will tell you without any hesitation:
Thomas is by far my favourite one!
Yet if you ask me why
I'd probably say that its because he is the one who is
most down to earth one of them all.
Thomas is courageous because,
as you will recall,
when Jesus was on his way to Judea he knew that they wanted to stone Jesus
and Thomas calls on his friends,
"let us go to die with him!"
Thomas is a seeker:
he wants all things spelled out clearly in front of him.
At the last supper, he tells Jesus,
"Master, we do not know where we are going, so how can we know the way?"
to which, Jesus replies,
I am the way the truth and the life."
Thomas is also very human.
In today's Gospel,
a week after the resurrection of Jesus,
while the disciples are behind closed doors,
he leaves them there and wanders off alone away from the community.
No wonder he is called Thomas, which in Hebrew means twin
and the evangelist emphasises this by adding "nicknamed the twin" in Greek.
Like him sometimes we wander away.
The Easter joy starts wearing off
and we start drifting away from the community.
Like him we miss the opportunity of meeting the Risen Christ in our midst.
Believing amidst temptations of doubt
We are called to believe amidst temptations of doubt.
To believe is to be find the balance between disbelief or incredulity,
which is basically, a closed heart,
and gullibility, or a closed mind.
In other words, to believe is to have both an open heart and an open mind at the same time.
When we have an open heart and an open mind,
then we can be struck with awe in front of the presence of Christ.
when we have an open heart and and open mind,
the Risen Christ comes to life in our own life
and does not remain a story that we hear about every year
or a figure like any other mythological figure.
We see him for who he really is:
a person, the Son of God, inviting us for a relationship with him.
We believe despite doubting.
Doubt will remain there.
It will never pass away.
And it is good to question things
It becomes a problem when I stop seeking and when my heart is closed to the truth.
The greatest faith is of that person who,
when it is most difficult to believe,
despite being assailed by doubts, makes a leap of faith and believes.
It is very much like love:
love is true love when it is hard for you to love him or her
and yet you love them.
That is true love.
Consoling words from Peter
And therefore the words of Peter in the second reading
make a lot of sense when he says:
"although you do not see him you love him,
although you do not see him, you believe in him."
Indeed, love and faith are two sides of the same coin.
A new beatitude
And here Jesus presents us with a new beatitude,
specifically for us who have not seen him in person,
and yet, because of an effort to have an open heart and an open mind, believe.
He knows how difficult it is for us to believe in him
But he also knows what joy we can experience in our heart if we actually believe in him.
He calls us "Blessed".
He says: "Blessed are those who have not seen and believed."
In other words, he is telling us, "Happy indeed are you!"
Touching the wounds of Jesus: signs of His Mercy
But Thomas yet goes a step further:
not only does did he ask to see the risen Lord,
he is bold enough to ask to touch the very wounds of Jesus.
Jesus knows what Thomas's doubts are and invites him to touch his wounds:
in his hands and in his side.
I think that it is no coincidence that Thomas believes only when he touches with his own hands the wounds in Jesus's resurrected body, which are the signs of His mercy.
I ask myself and I invite you to do the same this afternoon:
When was the last time that I touched the wounds of Jesus's body?
When was the last time that I touched the wounds in the body of Christ in my brothers and sisters?
I am referring here to the wounds of sin and division, of pain and suffering, of poverty and sickness.
It is ironic how these wounds, when seen from the outside are so repulsive
but when touched with our bare hands
they become wellsprings of God's mercy which increase in us our faith.
By inviting Thomas to touch his wounds,
Jesus actually touches and heals the wounds in Thomas himself:
the wounds of doubt and of separation from the rest of the community.
Some Thomases I know
Whenever I think of Thomas, I think of many other people I know
some whom I know very well,
who like Thomas before meeting the Risen Lord,
are detached in some way from the community.
They have stopped coming to Mass.
They see no point in gathering here with the community.
They feel that they do not belong here.
Or they have lost faith altogether.
Building authentic communities
What can we do in these cases?
I think that the first reading teaches us an important lesson:
the first Christians lived as a community:
they shared what they had and prayed together.
they listened to the word together and broke bread together.
I am sure that there were disagreements among them
just as any other human community would.
But these wounds did not hinder them
from experiencing the risen Christ among them.
And therefore our gathering here every Saturday or Sunday
is not merely to obey the third commandment, lest I commit a mortal sin.
I must look forward to coming here on Sunday to pray as a community,
to share the word of God, to break bread.
Even if I do not feel anything
even if I think that nothing is happening within me.
But it is then, and only then,
that the community truly reach out and grow as the community we have read about today in the Acts did.
Only then can the "Thomases" who have been alienated from the church
rediscover the Risen Chirst,
and not necessarily in ways that we can imagine and foresee.
I will tell you without any hesitation:
Thomas is by far my favourite one!
Yet if you ask me why
I'd probably say that its because he is the one who is
most down to earth one of them all.
Thomas is courageous because,
as you will recall,
when Jesus was on his way to Judea he knew that they wanted to stone Jesus
and Thomas calls on his friends,
"let us go to die with him!"
Thomas is a seeker:
he wants all things spelled out clearly in front of him.
At the last supper, he tells Jesus,
"Master, we do not know where we are going, so how can we know the way?"
to which, Jesus replies,
I am the way the truth and the life."
Thomas is also very human.
In today's Gospel,
a week after the resurrection of Jesus,
while the disciples are behind closed doors,
he leaves them there and wanders off alone away from the community.
No wonder he is called Thomas, which in Hebrew means twin
and the evangelist emphasises this by adding "nicknamed the twin" in Greek.
Like him sometimes we wander away.
The Easter joy starts wearing off
and we start drifting away from the community.
Like him we miss the opportunity of meeting the Risen Christ in our midst.
Believing amidst temptations of doubt
We are called to believe amidst temptations of doubt.
To believe is to be find the balance between disbelief or incredulity,
which is basically, a closed heart,
and gullibility, or a closed mind.
In other words, to believe is to have both an open heart and an open mind at the same time.
When we have an open heart and an open mind,
then we can be struck with awe in front of the presence of Christ.
when we have an open heart and and open mind,
the Risen Christ comes to life in our own life
and does not remain a story that we hear about every year
or a figure like any other mythological figure.
We see him for who he really is:
a person, the Son of God, inviting us for a relationship with him.
We believe despite doubting.
Doubt will remain there.
It will never pass away.
And it is good to question things
It becomes a problem when I stop seeking and when my heart is closed to the truth.
The greatest faith is of that person who,
when it is most difficult to believe,
despite being assailed by doubts, makes a leap of faith and believes.
It is very much like love:
love is true love when it is hard for you to love him or her
and yet you love them.
That is true love.
Consoling words from Peter
And therefore the words of Peter in the second reading
make a lot of sense when he says:
"although you do not see him you love him,
although you do not see him, you believe in him."
Indeed, love and faith are two sides of the same coin.
A new beatitude
And here Jesus presents us with a new beatitude,
specifically for us who have not seen him in person,
and yet, because of an effort to have an open heart and an open mind, believe.
He knows how difficult it is for us to believe in him
But he also knows what joy we can experience in our heart if we actually believe in him.
He calls us "Blessed".
He says: "Blessed are those who have not seen and believed."
In other words, he is telling us, "Happy indeed are you!"
Touching the wounds of Jesus: signs of His Mercy
But Thomas yet goes a step further:
not only does did he ask to see the risen Lord,
he is bold enough to ask to touch the very wounds of Jesus.
Jesus knows what Thomas's doubts are and invites him to touch his wounds:
in his hands and in his side.
I think that it is no coincidence that Thomas believes only when he touches with his own hands the wounds in Jesus's resurrected body, which are the signs of His mercy.
I ask myself and I invite you to do the same this afternoon:
When was the last time that I touched the wounds of Jesus's body?
When was the last time that I touched the wounds in the body of Christ in my brothers and sisters?
I am referring here to the wounds of sin and division, of pain and suffering, of poverty and sickness.
It is ironic how these wounds, when seen from the outside are so repulsive
but when touched with our bare hands
they become wellsprings of God's mercy which increase in us our faith.
By inviting Thomas to touch his wounds,
Jesus actually touches and heals the wounds in Thomas himself:
the wounds of doubt and of separation from the rest of the community.
Some Thomases I know
Whenever I think of Thomas, I think of many other people I know
some whom I know very well,
who like Thomas before meeting the Risen Lord,
are detached in some way from the community.
They have stopped coming to Mass.
They see no point in gathering here with the community.
They feel that they do not belong here.
Or they have lost faith altogether.
Building authentic communities
What can we do in these cases?
I think that the first reading teaches us an important lesson:
the first Christians lived as a community:
they shared what they had and prayed together.
they listened to the word together and broke bread together.
I am sure that there were disagreements among them
just as any other human community would.
But these wounds did not hinder them
from experiencing the risen Christ among them.
And therefore our gathering here every Saturday or Sunday
is not merely to obey the third commandment, lest I commit a mortal sin.
I must look forward to coming here on Sunday to pray as a community,
to share the word of God, to break bread.
Even if I do not feel anything
even if I think that nothing is happening within me.
But it is then, and only then,
that the community truly reach out and grow as the community we have read about today in the Acts did.
Only then can the "Thomases" who have been alienated from the church
rediscover the Risen Chirst,
and not necessarily in ways that we can imagine and foresee.
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