26-Mar-2008
Dear Friend,
All of us have moments of doubt, moments of uncertainty, moments when we are
not sure of where we stand or what to believe. We like certainty, we like
absolute proofs so we can believe. We want things to be black or white, not
shades of grey. It is normal to have doubts, even saints and sages had their
moments. The question is: what do we do with our doubts? Are we ready to
search, to confront our doubts and bring them to the Lord? Are we ready to face
the truth no matter what the consequences? Are we ready to stay with doubts to
discover the truth? Have a doubt-dispelling weekend encountering the risen
Lord. Fr. Jude
Sunday Reflections: Second Sunday of Easter -Doubt no longer but believe!
30-Mar-2008
Readings: Acts 2: 42-47; Isaiah 50: 4-7; Peter 1: 3-9;
John 20:19-31;
The first reading speaks of one of the fruits of the resurrection being life in
common, life in the community. This reading from the Acts, which records the
life in the Spirit, details essential elements of the whole Christian Church:
faithfulness to the teaching of the apostles, the sharing of goods, union of
hearts, prayer and the breaking of bread, joy that characterized the community
life and their zeal to spread the faith. People often ask, “What is the
Church?” Today’s reading has given us a graphic and dynamic description of the
Church that Jesus came to found on earth.
Unity of Faith
On 3rd February 1943 a convoy of American ships was bringing reinforcements
from St. John’s in Newfoundland to Greenland. In the darkness a German U-boat
struck suddenly a vulnerable spot and the transport ship began to sink rapidly.
On the boat were four US Army chaplains: a Catholic priest, two protestant
ministers and a Jewish rabbi. Of the 904 men on board only 299 were saved, the
chaplains were not among them. Unmindful of their own safety, when the
life-jackets ran short, each of the chaplains took off his own and gave it to
the man who had none. As the doomed ship sank, the men in the water could see
the four chaplains on the deck, ‘linked arm in arm, their voices raised in
prayer’. One of the coast-guard officers, John Mahoney, owed his life to
Chaplain Goode. The rabbi took off his gloves and gave them to him. The gloves
kept his hands from freezing and miraculously enabled him to cling to a
life-boat for eight hours, awaiting rescue,
while thirty-eight of the forty men in the boat froze to death or went
overboard.
‘The Messenger’
In his letter Peter praises and thanks God for the new life, the spiritual
rebirth bestowed on the Christians through the power of the resurrection. This
gift of life we first received at baptism, but this spiritual life is never
secure and we are frail and weak and need the strength of the spirit to live
this life to the full. The Christian lives in constant hope and is confident
that he will reach the end of his faith journey because of Christ who
accompanies him in life. He can even rejoice in his trials because he knows
that through them he can gain salvation. The Christian’s love for the Lord he
has not seen, and still without seeing him, helps him to find joy in his faith.
Living faith
A man was vacationing alone in a small cabin in the California mountains. He
was feeling lonely and depressed. Something was radically wrong with his life.
God seemed to have deserted him. His faith was flickering and threatening to go
out. In desperation the man turned to God and promised that he would do
anything that God wanted, if God would give back to him his peace of mind. Then
something strange happened. God seemed to speak to the man. God seemed to say
to him, “Start living the gospels. Start living out the teachings of Jesus,
even though you don’t understand them.” At that moment the man made a decision.
He resolved then and there to live his life according to the teachings of
Jesus. The decision turned the man’s life around. It wasn’t easy at first. He
fell back into his old ways again and again. But that one decision made all the
difference. In an article entitled ‘Living the Word’, the man says that his
cabin experience taught
him a lesson he never forgot the rest of his life. “I learned,” he says, “to
hear the word and act on it.” Blaise Pascal, a 17th century mathematical
genius, who was deeply religious, once wrote: “if you want to strengthen your
faith, do not augment your arguments but weed out your passions.” In other
words, the way to strengthen our faith is to live it, to put it into practice
in our daily lives.
Mark Link in ‘Sunday Homilies’
The gospel narrates how nothing could stop the risen Lord from joining his own
disciples. The doors of the house in which the disciples were huddled together
were closed yet nothing could keep him away from them. The risen Lord who could
pass through closed doors was proof that he was no longer subject to rules that
bind ordinary mortals. He comes with his greeting of peace. “Peace be to you!
Do not be afraid.” The ordinary Jew believed that peace was a gift that came
from God. Now when the Lord bestows his peace he binds them to himself and to
one another. He comes to bring them joy and the Spirit and the power of
forgiveness. But when he appeared to the disciples Thomas was not with them and
when told of the vision and encounter with the risen Lord he refused to
believe. He had his own conditions and demands for belief: “Unless I see the
holes that the nails have made in his hands and can put my finger into the
holes they made, and unless I can
put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe.” Eight days later the
disciples were in the house and Thomas was with them when Jesus again came and
stood among them offering his gift of peace: “Peace be to you!” He then
addressed Thomas and was ready to comply with Thomas’s demands. “Here Thomas,
feel me, touch me and banish your doubts. Doubt no longer but believe!” Thomas
humbly responds with a profound profession of faith: “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus then says to him and to all believers “You believe because you can see
me. Happy are those who have not seen yet believe.” The story of doubting
Thomas shows that the disciples who have seen the risen Jesus have no real
advantage over those later disciples who did not have that opportunity. Jesus
seems to remind us that there is no need of such a proof and we can reasonably
believe on the evidence and testimony of others. Thomas represents all of us
who must believe without seeing.
Believing in the risen Lord we can experience his peace and joy and the
forgiveness of our sins.
“The Risen Christ had appeared to the disciples in the absence of Thomas. Then
came Thomas, and careless of what others thought, said flatly: “Unless I see, I
refuse to believe.” Thomas the apostle was a forthright and honest man: his
mentality is revealed in various places in the gospels. Here he shows us that
in what concerns the adventure of faith, he is not easily convinced. How like
ourselves he is, in his pursuit of the real, the tangible, mistrustful of
ideologies unless they are vouched for by everyday experience. Yet God is not
displeased at this! The most amazing thing about faith is that one can believe.
The Lord understands this, and a week later takes him at his word and submits
to his demand: “Give me your hand and put it into my side. Doubt no longer but
believe.” And what about us, twentieth century believers: are we going to drift
through the liturgical season of the Easter season, repeating abstractedly:
“Happy are they who
have not seen, yet believe?” We ought rather to follow Thomas in trying to see
the power of the resurrection manifested in our lives –as individuals and as a
community! We should ask to see this power healing the wounds of our brothers;
undoing oppression; bringing back from the dead those men and women still
engulfed in sin.” – Glenstal Bible Missal
Touch Him in people
Several years ago a Joy of Life program was put on by the University of St.
Thomas in Houston. The program featured outstanding people from the Houston
area. Some of these celebrities were on television and stage, others from
professional football and the opera. But of all the people who appeared in that
Joy of Life program the one who stole the show was a 6 year-old mentally
deficient girl. When the spotlight focused on her, a sign on her back could be
read: “I am retarded, but I am glad to be alive.” What an affirmation of faith
on the part of her parents! Their 6 year-old daughter was retarded but they
were glad she was alive, and made her feel glad that she was alive. It was an
affirmation of faith comparable to Thomas in the gospel: “My Lord and my God.”
In fact their faith surpassed the faith of Thomas. He believed because he saw
the Lord. These parents believed even though they had not seen the Lord. Thomas
had to touch the Lord’s hands
and side before he believed. These parents could touch our Lord only by faith.
Every time they held their retarded daughter they believed they were touching
the Christ living in her by baptism. Their affirmation of faith is what Jesus
praised in the gospel when he said: “Blessed are those who have not seen and
have believed.” During the liturgy we profess our faith in the presence of
Christ in the Eucharist. At the end of the liturgy we will be sent to “Love and
serve the Lord” –to love and serve the Lord in mentally deficient 6 year-old
children and in teenage rebels; to love and serve the Lord in alcoholic parents
and senile grandparents. We are challenged not to persist in our unbelief, but
to believe –to believe in the risen Lord, and to believe that he still lives in
his people. Do we have enough faith to take our hands and touch him in his
people?
Albert Cylwicki in ‘His Word Resounds’
“Thomas remains forever a symbol of the power of doubting. He is a model of how
doubt can sometimes lead one to the truth much more effectively than blind
faith can. In order to be fruitful, doubt must be carried out with a thorough
honesty. The most important single step in the art of doubting is: to be
willing to confront the possible truth. If Thomas had not been willing to come
face-to-face with Jesus, he would never have known that Christ had risen. When
facing Jesus, if he had refused to engage in a confronting dialogue, he may
never have known that this was really the same person with whom he had walked
the streets of Jerusalem. The person who doubts and then avoids the subject, or
laughs at it, or considers it too insignificant to deal with, is a classic
fool. His or her doubts causes the person to live on the periphery of reality,
in a dull routine that gets a bit shaken every time to truth gets near. We must
be willing to carry our doubts as
did Thomas. Doubt that seeks to confront has far more power to lead one to the
truth than dull acceptance which seeks not to be bothered.” –Eugene Lauer
Too good to be true!
A wealthy businessman in a mid-western town had signs printed and placed all
over the town. They stated that if any man in the town who owed debts, would
come to his office on a certain day between nine and twelve in the morning, he
would pay the debts. Naturally, that promise was the talk of the town. Very few
believed it. They thought there was a catch somewhere. The day came and the
businessman sat in his office at nine. By ten no one had come. At eleven a man
was seen walking up and down outside, glancing occasionally at the office door.
Finally, he opened it, put his head in and asked, “Is it true that you will pay
any man’s debt? “That’s right,” the rich man replied. “Are you in debt?” “I
certainly am,” the caller answered. “Do you have along the bills or statements
to prove it?” The visitor produced the documents and the businessman wrote out
a cheque covering all of them. Before twelve o’clock two other men came and also
had all their debts paid. People outside could not believe it…. But there was
no time left for them to have their bills paid. –If people do not believe in
the goodness of man, how can they believe in the goodness of God?
Arthur Tonne
May we see and feel and touch him in his people!
Fr. Jude Botelho
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been
collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and
from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever
possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you
could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in
these reflections. These reflections are also available on my web site
www.netforlife.net Thank you.
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