After our 40 days in
the desert with Jesus, after our wondrous celebration of Holy Week with all the
rituals and traditions of our Catholic faith, we now find ourselves on the
Second Sunday of the Easter season. The readings we have
during the Easter season help us to make sense of the Risen Lord and to
understand the reality of the resurrection in Jesus’ life and our own lives. The disciples were
huddled together behind a locked door that evening that Jesus miraculously
appeared to them, wishing them peace. We may be locked up
behind doors ourselves, separating ourselves from God and keeping us from
growing in our own life of faith. With this in mind, as
we continue our journey through the Easter season we find ourselves this
morning face-to-face with Thomas, one of Jesus’ twelve apostles.
In a lot of ways
Thomas has gotten a bad rap in the way most Christians view him. We label him
“Doubting Thomas,” although that name is never officially given to him in
Scripture. And he is labeled
“Doubting Thomas” in a pejorative and negative way. When I thought about
Thomas this week while working on my homily and reflecting upon the Gospel, I
thought about the different styles we can have in learning, of our different
personalities, or the different ways we human beings can interact with the
world. I remember when I
taught Spanish at Greenville Weston High School for 4 years in the Mississippi
Delta, our motto one year as teachers was this:
If my students don’t learn the way I teach, then I have to change the
way I teach. A good motto to have,
especially when most of my students in the Delta probably did not learn in the
same way that I did as a child and youth in school. In fact, I remember
one of the first things I did with my students the first week of the school
year was to take a learning styles inventory with them, and then the way I
taught throughout the school year had to conform to those particular learning
styles. It was interesting
and not too surprising to me that rather than learning best by listening to a
lecture or reading a book, most of them were kinetic or tactile learners, where
the students learned best by doing or touching or performing an activity. I see Thomas as a
tactile and kinetic learner as well. He
has to have that physical touch, that activity that shows him that he can
indeed believe.
In the Gospel, Thomas
is said to be also known as Didymus – the Twin.
It doesn’t use the specific name “Doubter” at all. In fact, I think a
lot of Christians feel shame when the reality of their lives in a given moment
is characterized by a lot of questions in their faith, when they aren’t sure
any more about some of those things they had previously accepted by faith, when
they are have trouble understanding or accepting some of the things that the
Church teaches. Rather than saying
that Thomas is a doubter and labeling him in a negative way, we could say that
Thomas is a realist. In fact, doubt is not
the opposite of faith as it is sometimes labeled. To doubt sometimes,
to ask questions, to search and to wonder and to seek – those are all ingredients
of a vibrant, alive faith, a faith that is in motion. I think that to be a
realist like Thomas – to bring the reality of our lives to our faith – to be
honest with God with the ways we not only try to put our trust in God and have
confidence in him, but also to bring the skepticism and uncertainty and
unbelief that we hold onto – that is an asset in approaching our faith. Thomas the Apostle
was honest with Jesus – he wanted to believe - and Jesus invited Thomas to
reach out and touch him.
There is another
Thomas we had been talking about during Lent: the Trappist monk Thomas
Merton. We used his quote “seeking God
in all things” as our theme during Lent.
I heard a lot of comments from many parishioners who enjoyed hearing the
reflections after the homily of how different members of our parish experienced
the reality of God in their lives and how they were seeking God. Merton has a prayer that perhaps expresses
some thoughts about how we might sometimes feel on our journey of faith in light
of this Gospel about Jesus appearance to Thomas and the other disciples:
My Lord God, I have
no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me. Nor do I really know myself.
And the fact that I think I am following your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
Does in fact please you.
And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this,
You will lead me by the right road
Though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always
Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death
I will not fear for you are ever with me.
And you will never leave me to face my struggles alone. Amen.
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