THE DOUBTER AND THE BELIEVER

A MESSAGE FOR LOW SUNDAY

Eastern Christians call today “Thomas Sunday”, after the Apostle Thomas whose story of doubt and renewed faith constitutes today’s Gospel.  This year, it is fitting that after today’s example of doubting Thomas, we should celebrate tomorrow the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who alone never doubted her faith. 

If we consider the apparitions of our Lord mentioned in holy Scripture, we will see that in each case, including today’s appearance to St. Thomas, the purpose was to restore the faith of these men and women.  Their faith had been severely tested by the events of Good Friday, and it needed to be restored.  Tradition has it that our Lord appeared twelve times to his faithless disciples, prefiguring the twelve articles of the Apostles’ Creed which affirm today our faith in the risen Lord.

It is worthy of note, however, that we look in vain for a scriptural reference to the appearance of our Lord to his blessed Mother after he rose from the dead.  The Bible makes no mention of this event, and of course, the Protestants will use that as some kind of evidence that it didn’t happen.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Surely, it is her very absence from the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection that emphasizes her unique status.  As the Angel Gabriel confirmed in his greeting to her at the Annunciation, the Blessed Virgin Mary was full of grace, full of faith.  There was no room for doubt in her soul, and even in the midst of her terrible sorrow on Good Friday, she did not lose sight of the glorious Resurrection that she knew would soon follow.  No apparition by her Son was necessary to restore her faith, nor even to increase it.  There was no need to restore something that was never lost.

From the absence of such an account in Holy Scripture, it would be wrong to conclude that such a meeting did not take place.  On the contrary, it is a long-established tradition that she was in fact the very first of our Lord’s twelve apparitions between his Resurrection and Ascension.  Many are the works of art that depict this meeting, a meeting which no saint has ever denied.  St. Ambrose was the first of many doctors of the Church to affirm this belief explicitly, while his disciple St. Augustine further taught that our Lady was the only one who kept the faith of the Church alive during the three days from Good Friday to Easter Sunday.

Our transition from today’s doubting Thomas to tomorrow’s Virgin Most Faithful is therefore a natural one that should confirm our own faith in the risen Lord.