April 24, 2022 (Second Sunday of Easter)

“Entertaining Doubts”

by Fr. Dominic DeLay, O.P.

[This is the text composed by the homilist prior to delivering the homily.]

Did you realize the disciples are behind locked doors on the very day Mary told them she’d seen the risen Lord? She did tell them, didn’t she? Haven’t they fully grasped the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection? Is that why they’re still afraid?

Jesus comes to their aid with his deep peace: “Shalom.” He shows them his wounds, which enables them to recognize him and to rejoice. He breathes his Spirit on them and commissions them to forgive.

Can we blame the absent Thomas for not believing without all these signs? Do the disciples fail to effectively communicate their resurrection faith to him? We might admire Thomas’ courage at admitting his doubts.

Do you have any doubts? Are we willing to admit our doubts, even to ourselves? If we do admit them, are we willing to pursue them?

There are at least a couple unhealthy, alternative responses we commonly have when we admit our doubts. One is shame: I’m not supposed to doubt. Someone the other day even insisted to me that doubt is a sin. Another unhealthy response to our doubt is a reflexive giving up and turning away. I think both responses are motivated by fear, whether a fear that we’re not supposed to doubt or a fear that we won’t be able to answer our doubt.

It’s tempting to fail to see doubt as the gift it is: a chance to go deeper in faith. Someone said doubt is a kind of vaccine: the introduction of weakness enables us to become stronger. If we’re not willing to entertain doubts at Stanford, where and when are we going to do that work? In fact, undergrads are at the age when their doubting and questioning is one of their superpowers. They’re supposed to be asking questions, and their questions are a gift for the rest of us, whose faith may be stagnant. True faith is dynamic, always growing.

How can we use doubt as a catalyst for growing in faith? First, we might ask if what we doubt is actually what the Church teaches. We often presume we understand Church teaching, but if we do a little exploration we discover we were doubting instead what we read in the news or heard someone else say. Or we were doubting a mere surface explanation of a deeper, more mysterious truth.

Another pseudo-doubt is a disagreement with Church teaching that isn’t essential or with a moral teaching. When it comes to the Church’s moral teaching, if we question it, we’re supposed to study it, approaching Church teaching with respect. We’re supposed to talk about it with wise people and pray about it. Most of you won’t believe me when I say this, but if after such a process we still disagree with the Church’s teaching, we’re obliged to follow our conscience. Shall I say that again? Our Church teaches us, or admittedly often forgets to teach us, that we’re supposed to form our conscience and follow it.

Even if we don’t have moral questions, an always maturing, authentic morality means we work at internalizing our Church’s moral wisdom – make sense out of it and let it seep into our hearts – so that we’re not merely following rules. Jesus wants us to be fully human, acting out of love and freedom, guided by grace.

But what if our doubts are real and basic doubts? What if we find ourselves questioning Jesus’ resurrection? Or the divinity of the Holy Spirit? (Okay, actually most of us don’t even think about the Holy Spirit.) Or the very existence of God? First of all, we need to remember that doubts don’t make us abnormal or defective or sinful. We all have such doubts along the way, often recurring.

Doubts frequently accompany difficult times in our lives. Thomas is grieving the senseless, violent death of his friend. It’s not unusual that the death of someone close to us or the wars far away lead us to ask why God allows such suffering. We, like Thomas, aren’t satisfied with any explanation or experience that denies the wounds, and we’re right to shield ourselves from facile cheering words.

Speaking of explanations, we need to remind ourselves that our task in the face of doubts isn’t to find proof. Although faith doesn’t go against reason, it does go beyond it. Reason and proof can’t get us to faith. There may indeed be some studying to do. What do we mean by the resurrection? How have others dealt with the problem of evil? We even have a special name just for the exploration of the question of why God allows suffering and evil: theodicy.

But our primary task in the midst of such doubts is to courageously and patiently stay with them. Poor Thomas had to, perhaps needed to, go through another week of painful doubt. He probably spent the week not just waiting, but wrestling, spending time with his friends and praying. And so we – yes, usually more than a week – need to wait and wrestle, asking others to accompany us and bringing our doubts, our whole selves, to prayer, not pushing for quick and clear answers but opening our hearts to mystery. When we’re living in doubt, we need to continue to pray with the Church, especially at Mass. We don’t walk alone with our doubts. Faith exists only in the midst of relationships, with God and with others. Faith is that relationship with God, even when we’re shouting at God, perhaps especially then.

We probe our doubts like Thomas wanted to probe Jesus’ wounds. We observe them, talk about them, pray with them. We can only be patient. The phrase “entertaining doubts” is a term of judgment. But entertaining our doubts is precisely what we need to do. We need to be hospitable to our doubts. Yes, this is scary, but what’s the alternative?

Actually, one alternative is a seductive mirror version of authentic faith: rigid, narrow religion. It can be tempting in the face of doubts and in the midst of other scary things going on in our lives and in the world to latch onto a restricted view of religion and God: these are the rules, this is what God thinks about everything, this is how we pray, this is how we act. Just do it.

Doubt is not a sin. But responding with that kind of fundamentalism or running away might involve sins such as pride and sloth. We might even envy the faith of others rather than accepting the gift of faith – and doubt – that is distinctly ours. Yes, ultimately, faith is a gift, but one not denied the seeker.

Thomas admits his doubt and is rewarded with another appearance of Jesus. After again extending his penetrating shalom, Jesus offers his wounds to Thomas. But Thomas doesn’t need to touch them after all. After all his struggle, he is surprised to hear himself say, “My Lord and my God!” Thomas, the courageous entertainer of doubts, is now witnessing to the others an even deeper faith than they had previously known.

Jesus’ response? He turns to us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” He doesn’t say we’re blessed only if we’ve never doubted. We’re blessed rather by deep faith, a faith that only comes when we dare to entertain doubt, that inevitable if uninvited guest. “Blessed are those who have the courage of Thomas to probe the mysteries of faith so that they can truly believe and share that belief with others.”