The readings for Second Sunday of Easter | Sunday of Divine Mercy may be found at:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041121.cfm
We’ve all had a nickname at one point or another.
For some of us, nicknames might have been given when we were very young and never left - and they’re not always flattering are they?
To be honest, Tony Bologna stuck to me a lot longer than I would have liked - and there were others too, but I choose not to share those here.
Today, St. John portrays Saint Thomas The Apostle as “Doubting Thomas” - a nickname that has stuck to him for more than 2,000 years.
That’s a long time.
Now, the moral of this story is often that all someone needs to do is to close their eyes and believe in order to see.
But to do that, to focus on Thomas and judge him as someone NOT to be, is not right.
Today’s gospel is about how those closest to Jesus didn’t recognize Him after the resurrection. So, this isn’t just a Thomas thing.
We sometimes forget that Jesus was Jewish - as were his disciples.
Jews didn’t have a concept of resurrection, plus Jesus looked somewhat different when he appeared to them.
Let’s also not forget that their teacher, their Messiah had just been brutally tortured, publicly mocked and executed for all to see on Good Friday.
His guys, His posse - all ran away on Holy Thursday, before the first scourging and long before the first nail.
They ran. They hid - afraid they too would be imprisoned, tortured and killed.
It’s no wonder they locked themselves out of sight.
It’s not until Jesus shows up with his wounded hands and feet that they believed.
Thomas was just the one who spoke up.
In fact, you could look at Thomas’s insistence to see the marks of Jesus’ wounds, not as a matter of doubt, - but as a way of making the point that the resurrection was a real thing.
That the resurrection was not just something spiritual, but that it was physical - and that Jesus’ body, with its wounds still intact, connected the man who suffered on the cross with the Risen Christ.
This was no ghost or spirit in front of them, but a human with a real body.
Now, none of us understands how the resurrection worked.
The resurrection is a great mystery, but it is also the cornerstone of our faith.
Likewise, our faith is probably as mysterious to us today as it ever has been.
For most of us, we don’t know why, or how we believe.
But to proclaim Christ risen from the dead is to make real - the power of God in the world and in our lives.
To proclaim Christ risen from the dead is to make known God’s power to transform us - and the world through his Divine Mercy.
But that transformation is not an easy thing to grasp.
It’s not an end and beginning - it’s a continuation.
The risen, glorified Christ carries with Him His full humanity, including all the scars of his human suffering.
So I ask you - Is our faith life any different?
For all of its divine source and power as a gift, our faith is carried in our human bodies -
with all of our frailty, uncertainty, insecurities, anxieties and weakness.
I think this is a good point for us to reflect and to pray on.
Do we need to see to believe?
Do we bargain with God - if you do this, I will do this?
Do we ask Him to prove His love to us?
Especially this Divine Mercy Sunday, when we can gain a plenary indulgence that removes all punishment for sin for a soul in purgatory.
Do we take the time to earn one?
Unlike Thomas - We have 2,000 years of history, we have Scripture, we have Oral Tradition -
We have the Church, the Sacraments, we have the real presence of Jesus, in the Holy Eucharist.
We have the promise of the risen Jesus bringing mercy to the whole world as we celebrate this Divine Mercy Sunday.
Yet we still doubt.
Still we hide behind our own locked doors…
…….so, let’s give Thomas a break.
Let us act on the great gift of mercy that has been promised to us.
This week, let us pray for the intercession of St. Thomas The Apostle -
so that we too can say with firm belief, love, hope and not a shred of doubt,
“My Lord and my God”
just as he did.
