Readings for Divine Mercy Sunday, April 11th

If you haven’t read or heard today’s Mass readings for this Second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, please read them first, particularly the Gospel, and then return here for my thoughts.

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“I won’t believe it until I touch him.” Thomas’ words.

The story of Thomas and his doubt, always heard one week after Easter, is in a way a story about us, not just about him. It’s about our struggle to believe. At times many of us have thought that our faith would be stronger if we could only touch Jesus. “Why can’t we also see you, Lord, or touch you?” Have you ever thought that?

And it’s a story about what happens when there are no more actual appearances of Jesus. After his resurrection Jesus was present to the apostles and some close friends in an extraordinarily unique way. But he’s not present to us in exactly that way. Oh, he’s present to us. He’s absolutely present here at Mass and in prayer and in many other faith experiences. But not present to us in the same way he was to those apostles.

So what happens when the original witnesses die? When Peter, John, Thomas and the rest die? What do the generations that follow do? What do they do when there’s nobody around anymore who actually saw him? What can we do but take the word of the apostles for it? We either trust them or we don’t. Jesus himself said: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” How do we believe?

Isn’t it about trusting? Trusting those who’ve come before us. Trusting what we can’t see with our own eyes? We have to trust those who have passed on the message to us, trust the Gospels, trust the Church. Think of it this way: Jesus says, “Look at my wounds. Put your finger into my nail marks and into my side.” But Thomas never did. That’s odd because you’d think he would have. No, instead he says, “My Lord and My God” - five of the greatest words of faith in all of scripture. I think Thomas’ not touching Jesus represents the way actual faith is born. Faith isn’t a kind of testing for results. It’s not proving something like a scientist. It’s the recognition that Christ is real despite the fact we can’t see him physically.
Faith is when we’re convinced something is real even when it’s not altogether visible. It’s like loyalty, courage and love. They’re real even though they’re not always apparent. They’re not always visible like trees. Love is real even though we may not always see it.

There’s a piece of writing on the wall of one the Nazi concentration camps - written by a Jewish Holocaust victim. “I believe in the sun though it isn’t shining. I believe in love though I don’t feel it.” There are lots of things in life we believe even though we don’t see them. And if everything depended on physically seeing how could life go on?

We live our lives through faith of all kinds. We have faith in each other. We count on others to be there for us. Spouses, children, friends. We count on them. Sure, occasionally someone disappoints us. But we don’t give up all relationships when that happens. We don’t stop trusting.  We all need faith. We all need to recognize that faith is the fundamental thing that keeps life together.

And what the Church is saying is that there’s a form of faith that stands above other kinds of faith in your life - which is the faith we have in God. It doesn’t mean that other kinds of faith, like faith in people, aren’t important. It means faith in God trumps everything else.  So when you encounter something truly beautiful and holy and good in the realm of the spirit, don’t deny it.

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The Resurrection of Jesus changed the first disciples. And I think the biggest change was that they weren’t afraid of death anymore. That was so much the case that they stood up with courage for what was right. They stood up for him. That’s something we can trust. The way we die in everyday life is out of fear and being intimidated. But we don’t need to. Christ risen is with us.

I love the story of Father Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest. During the Second World War he joined an anti-Nazi group that was planning to build a new Christian society after the war ended. By late 1944 people knew that Germany would lose the war. Father Delp, wanting to organize Christians at the time, was arrested, charged with treason and sentenced to hang until death. He was confined to a dark prison cell, put in chains, and during his last months wrote a remarkable series of spiritual meditations that were smuggled out of prison. They offer a beautiful glimpse of his faith and courage.

As he awaited death, he wrote that he could sum up his life this way: “surrender yourself to God and you will find yourself again…the inner law of freedom sings that no death can kill us; life is eternal.”

Just before they took him to the gallows he smiled and whispered to the prison chaplain, “In half an hour, I’ll know more than you do.” That’s the power of faith in the resurrection. That’s the kind of faith we’ve inherited down the ages.

Soldiers, bullies say to us:
“See my sword.”
“See my gun.”
“See my badge.”
“We’ll scare you because you’re afraid to die.”

And disciples, ancient ones and modern ones, say: “Oh no. We’ve met someone who came back from the dead. We’re not afraid. Our faith is stronger than your sword.” This is the kind of faith we should be spreading to one another and inculcating in our kids. The resurrection gave that courage - that faith - to Thomas, all the apostles, twenty centuries of their followers…and to us.  Let’s pass it on!