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| Caravaggio's Doubting Thomas |
Have you ever witnessed an Easter miracle? A depressed person resurrected to hope; someone with an alcoholic addiction resurrected to sobriety; a troubled marriage resurrected to renewed love; an estrangement bridged; a terrible wrong forgiven.
We can help create little Easter miracles like that. Think about how, and then do it.
Now the word of God carries us back to the beginnings of Christianity, to a community faithful to Jesus Christ – the way, the truth and the life, a community that worshiped together and shared what they had. These early Christians should inspire us to do the same.
The letter attributed to Peter speaks about our new birth in the life-giving waters of baptism: God gifted us with an imperishable heavenly inheritance. Our faith empowers us to overcome hardships and attain our “goal”: salvation, life eternal with the triune God.
In the Gospel according to John, we have a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus in a house where the apostles hide behind locked doors. Jesus suddenly appears here not merely a spirit or ghost; nor was he simply resuscitated. Jesus was the same person that the apostles knew before but his earthly body was transformed. It was, as Pope Benedict XVI phrased, an “evolutionary leap” into a new of spiritual embodiment.
The risen Jesus then bestows upon the disciples the energizing Spirit, the abiding peace, and the overwhelming mercy of God. But skeptical Thomas wasn’t there. We know little about him, yet “doubting Thomas” is easily identifiable with many people today, because to be human is to question, to ask for concrete evidence.
A week later Jesus appears again, Thomas sees the light and makes that awesome declaration of faith: “My Lord and my God.”
We are born to be in relationship with God. Otherwise, we will experience an emptiness, an unrest, a feeling something is missing. St. Augustine captured this spiritual hunger eloquently: “Our hearts are restless until they can find rest in you, O God.”
We all need a loving, ongoing relationship. But no human relationship will satisfy us completely, because God created us to live in relationship with Him. Yes, God made every human being in His image. Somehow we broke that relationship and clouded that image with sin. Good and bad, generosity and selfishness, light and dark, all live within us.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus re-established our relationship with God through his death/resurrection. Where there was death, we find life. There was an empty tomb, we find hope.
We all cry out for reconciliation and peace, healing and mercy, which we celebrate today— Divine Mercy Sunday. We yearn for truth and peace and justice, and only in Jesus can we truly find it.
Jesus has freed us from death and nothingness so that we can be in relationship with God forever. He founded a church, a community of disciples, to continue God’s work. In this community God transforms us through the sacraments into new creatures, called to live as His sons and daughters.
One final word regarding Thomas the questioner. Various indicators point to God. The order in the universe presupposes an “orderer” like a watch presupposes a watchmaker, hope presupposes a future; and so forth. There are also signs that point to no God—for example, genocide or the holocaust or even pandemic disease. But faith in God is a calculated risk.
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, inventor, and philosopher, “wagered” like this:
One does not know whether God exists.
Not believing in God is bad for one’s eternal soul if God does exist.
Believing in God is of no consequence if God does not exist.
Therefore, it is in one’s interest to believe in God. Think about it. In other words, faith in God is a good bet.
At a funeral mass, we hear the words, “For those who believe, life is not taken away, life is merely changed.” Let us pray that our faith in God will empower us to exclaim every day, “My Lord and my God.”
