A SERMON FOR LOW SUNDAY
Since the day of his Resurrection, Christ had appeared many times, to his blessed Mother, to St. Mary Magdalene, to his apostles. These apostles, most of whom lost their faith completely when Our Lord was put to death on the cross, were finally beginning to come to grips with the idea that his resurrection was real, that it was in fact the proof they needed that this man was indeed the Son of God. They had gone to hide in the Cenacle, the room where Our Lord had celebrated the first Mass and ordained them as the first priests of his New Covenant with man. This Cenacle was a place filled with good memories, comforting memories, memories they apparently needed to get them through those anxious times surrounding Good Friday. So now they returned to these familiar surroundings after they started hearing rumors that our Lord had appeared to Mary Magdalene. And then, in the course of that first Easter week, they were amazed as Christ appeared to them also, and they had been able to see him for themselves. He came to them, he even shared a meal with them, demonstrating clearly he was not a ghost, not an apparition, but a living, breathing human being. And their faith had returned.
They had all seen him that day. All except two of them—Judas of course, who had lost his faith entirely and was now dead; and Thomas. For some reason, Thomas had not been there during the week when Our Lord came and shared bread with the other apostles. When they told him that Christ was risen, he could not bring himself to believe. Maybe he was afraid of being disappointed. Could he really believe his friends? Or was it a case of mistaken identity, or a hallucination? Or maybe they wanted to teach him a lesson for not being there the other day? All he knew was that Christ was dead, and dead men don’t come back to life. He knew this. Or did he? Hadn’t he seen with his own eyes when Our Lord had raised Lazarus from the dead just a week or so ago? But this was different. Christ surely couldn’t raise himselffrom the dead… If he was dead, how could he do anything?
So Thomas was wracked with doubt. Like so many others before him who had doubted, Thomas asked for a sign “that he might believe”. His words of unbelief echo those others had uttered during the course of our Lord’s ministry, those who could not bring themselves to believe that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. And our Lord rebuked them for asking for a sign instead of believing. His rebuke came in the form of a prophesy: “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Thomas had heard this prophesy, and when the other apostles bore witness to the resurrection after our Lord had indeed been three days and nights in the heart of the earth, he should have believed. Thomas heard all this, and yet did not believe, he could not allow himself to “get his hopes up” and give credence to something so apparently impossible as the Resurrection. Not only did he not believe, he even had the temerity to repeat the mistake of the unbelieving Jews. He asked for a sign. Worse than that, the sign he asked for was more in the form of an ultimatum: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
Whatever mitigating motive Thomas may have had in being reluctant to believe, it fades in the light of his arrogant challenge that Christ should appear to him, not only showing him his five Sacred Wounds, but allowing him to touch them. Even though he might see them for himself with his own eyes, it would still not be enough for Thomas.
Before we condemn Thomas, let us remember that he is SaintThomas. He not only saved his soul, but is placed before us as a worthy example of holiness that we should follow. Not, of course, in his unbelief, but in the example of humble contrition for his unbelief in the words “My Lord and my God!”
For, after all, who among us has not at one time or another been tempted with doubt? Like St. Thomas, we doubt. If we had faith, if we believed that our Lord and our God was present before us in this Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, if we truly believed that our Lord Jesus Christ desires to be close to us, to be received by us sacramentally, how could we even for a moment be so contemptuous of this greatest of gifts that we would not give up everything we have, everything we love, in order to be present at Mass. Nothing would get in our way, nothing would stop us from being there, every week, every day if possible. The union with God that we experience in Holy Communion is the foretaste of our everlasting happiness in union with God that one day will be ours in heaven, if only we would truly believein Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, and if we choose to respond to God’s love by receiving that Holy Eucharist in the Blessed Sacrament.
Christ is hidden in the Blessed Sacrament. We don’t see him. We see nothing but bread, we smell wine. The Church tells us that this is Christ our Saviour, but like St. Thomas, we have a hard time bringing ourselves to believe. If we doubt, we do not commit a sin. It is a temptation. We sin only if we willingly choose to reject belief. But our doubt is dangerous nonetheless, and so often prevents us from joyfully receiving Christ. Doubting Thomas made that mistake, he was so reluctant to welcome Our Lord back from the dead.
It is not doubt if we question whyGod hides himself from us. There is an answer to that question: if he didn’t, if we could see him and hear him for ourselves, dwelling amongst us here today, there would be no need for faith. We would not have to give that loving assent to what he has taught us, to the instructions he gave us that unless we eat his Flesh and drink his Blood we will have no life in us. He looks to us to have that faith.
Our faith is something that we must pray for constantly, that we may believe ever more firmly in the truths Our Lord gives us. Sometimes that is hard. We can have intellectual doubts, doubts about the faith, such as those raised by atheists or bad books like the Da Vinci Code. Or doubts can be spiritual in nature, such as when we doubt we are forgiven for past sins, or we doubt we can grow in virtue. The most common kind of doubt comes with the circumstances of life: “Why did my child die?” “Why did the fire destroy my home?” “Where was God when these terrible things happened to me?” God understands these doubts, and is always ready to comfort us when we have them. These doubts are not necessarily sinful, but they are very dangerous, and if we don’t run for comfort into the arms of Our Lord at the communion rail, we run the risk that our doubts may become spiritual in their nature: “What’s the point of trying if God just lets us get hurt anyway?” Or they may even become intellectual doubts: “No loving God would ever allow this to happen. There is no God. If there is a God he must be a cruel monster to permit such things.”
Doubt is a temptation, and like any temptation it tries to lead us down a dangerous path. It reminds me of a movie that came out last year, the true story of some crazy man who managed to string a cable between the twin towers of the old World Trade Center, and then walked across it. We’re like that man on the cable, balancing ourselves between unbelief and the other extreme of gullibility. Yes, we’re right to be cautious about things we read or hear, fake news and all the nonsense in the tabloids and on the internet, but when God reveals something to us through the Church, thenwe must believe. And the moment we doubt is the moment we start wobbling on that tightrope. Remember St. Peter, who had so much faith that he jumped out of his boat and walked on water to meet his master. But then he doubted: “When he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”. When we find ourselves wobbling on our tightrope, or sinking into waters of doubt, St. Peter gives us the example of what we must do. We must cry out as he did, with the simple words “Lord, save me.” And Christ will stretch forth his hand and catch us. He may rebuke us for doubting, but he will catch us.
We must learn this lesson now and fix it in our minds, so that, God forbid, when something really bad happens to us, we have that faith in God, and trust him to lead us, like St. Peter, back to the safety of the ship. Don’t come to me, and say “Father, father, why did God let this happen?” Prepare your faith now for the tests to come, so that it is not shaken in the winds of fate. When our Lord saved St. Peter, he took him back to the ship, and as the Gospel tells us, “the wind ceased.” The ship of course is St. Peter’s own ship, the barque of Peter, a symbol of the Church. Here in the Church, we should find the calm and stability of the unchanging faith, and our own belief returns as the winds of change around us cease. If we do not find that stability, then it is not the true Church, and we must seek until we find one, like St. Margaret Mary’s here, where your soul can be at rest. When the wind ceased, and the barque of Peter settled down, “Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.”
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