Dear Alleluia People of God, a continued “HAPPY EASTER!” from Fr. King, Fr. Emmanuel, and Deacon Stan Galazin
The Doubting Thomas in All of Us
There is an old French saying which says that ‘God often visits us but most of the time we’re not at home’. On the evening of the first day of the week when Jesus appeared to the apostles while they were in the Upper Room, Thomas was not at home. When he finally arrived, it seems, the rest of the apostles came at him like a swarm of bees buzzing with news. They had just seen the Lord ...alive ... talking with them. He had given them the very power he had claimed only for himself: the power to forgive sins. They were bursting to tell somebody, anybody, about it and Thomas came in the door. But Good Friday and the death of Jesus had crushed Thomas’ dreams and left him a deeply wounded, disillusioned and angry man. ‘Look’, he said, ‘when I see the holes the nails made in his hands and when I can put my finger into his side, when I can do that then I’ll believe.’
Our faith in the resurrection can be a bit like that too. We can proclaim our Alleluias on Easter morning. We can have absolutely no problem affirming our belief in life after death. We can offer words of encouragement to those in difficulty. But when our own faith is suddenly put to the test, we can soon realize the difference between proclaiming Alleluias on Easter morning and accepting the reality that faith in the risen Christ demands of me in a given situation.
What I mean by that is: it can be relatively easy to believe in the resurrection and in the love and goodness of God when children are healthy and life is fulfilling and a marriage is happy and work is going well and when the sun shines for us and for those we love. But when the clouds gather and someone we love is dead or a child is seriously ill or a marriage breaks up or a job is lost, then it’s quite a different matter to incorporate that experience into our life of faith.
Many of us too, I think, have the attitude that if we believe in the risen Christ, if we do our best to live as well as we can, that
therefore everything should work out for us, that in a way God really owes us that much. But that’s to look at faith from a very
limited, human point of view. Faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ isn’t a magic potion that we apply to the great ailments of life and suddenly makes them disappear. Rather, faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a unique perspective that gives us both the insight and the courage to face life as it is, to confront the pain of illness, to bear the loneliness of bereavement, to face the cutting edge of personal failure. When life goes against us, when everything seems dark, when we are inclined to turn in on ourselves, like Thomas in this Sunday’s Gospel, the risen Christ calls us to face the reality that life is for us. The risen Christ calls us to fight the small and the great battles of life. The risen Christ calls us to bring a perspective of light and hope to the inevitable pains and
limitations of the human condition.
And we all know from our own experience of life, that having the faith, and living a good life and being faithful to Mass does not automatically mean that everything is going to work out well for us. It does not mean that faith in the risen Christ somehow
inoculates us against the pains and problems of life. But what faith in the risen Christ gives us is a reassuring presence, a quiet strength, a perspective on life, a secure harbor out of which we can learn to face and to influence the life that God has given us.
Happy Easter and Have a Blessed Week.
Fr. Peter