2nd Sunday of Easter, April 19, 2020

Theme: What is faith? Why focus on Jesus’ wounds?

John 20:19–31

It was evening on the day Jesus rose from the dead, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the authorities. Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas, who was called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

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Music Meditations

• Christ in Me Arise—Trevor Thomson
• Our God is Here—Chris Muglia (Praise and Worship)
• We Remember--Marty Haugen
• Come Thou Font of every Blessing—Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Companions for the Journey

Adapted from “First Impressions” 2020, a preaching service of the Southern Dominican Province:

There are two stories woven together in the Gospel segment. The second is that of Thomas. And doesn’t he get a bad rap in our telling of this story! Remember his courageous statement to the disciples in the Lazarus account we read on the 5th Sunday of Lent? He invites them to go with Jesus and “die with Him” (11:16).  But his presence in today’s story encourages us in our own struggles to believe. Notice the different faiths present in this account.  Faith seeking, confessing, faltering, probing and questioning, praising and deepening. Remember what Thomas  had seen, the horror of Jesus’ capture and death. He had been part of the exciting years of Jesus’ ministry and had, with the rest, placed great hope in Jesus. He had believed in Jesus—not in a doctrine or abstract truths, but in the flesh and blood Jesus. Flesh and blood had perished on the cross, he could assume that Jesus’s death had put an end to it all. He didn’t need mere evidence, but a life-changing experience, a face-to-face encounter. We might note the difference between believing “in” something like—believing in the need to pray; the ethical guidelines; the structure of Christianity, etc. and “believing Jesus.” The New Testament describes it as “believing into” rather han ”believing in.” The personal experience is crucial for a life giving faith.

Another reflection from the Thomas account. We experience the risen Jesus when we touch the nail marks. There are people who are suffering and yet we meet in them a peace and  reconciliation that surpasses the merely human. In them we meet the Risen One. We meet the Risen One in the faith of a family who has just lost a beloved member; in a person who overcomes drugs, or alcohol and regains life and dignity. We meet and touch God too in the everyday of our lives, where we hear the eternal voice of God giving life through the ordinary.  Let us listen to our own  lives and note, too, the movements from doubting to believing that result from everyday experiences through which the Risen One appears to us and invites us to touch and believe.

Thomas is our guide when we are doubting and need the experience of the Risen Lord in our lives. Thomas shows us how and where to find him. We might miss Jesus on the first visit, but Thomas’ example says to us to stay posted, keep looking and expect to find him when he comes around again. There is a special way Thomas encounters the risen Lord in today’s Gospel: he stays with the community. The community was able to put up with his doubting; he was not expelled for his lack of faith and the expressions of doubt. Like all Christian communities, there was a variance in the faith expression of its members. This may have been disquieting to the members, but they seem confident enough in their own newly minted faith to be patient with Thomas, until he too could come to see what they had seen.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today's session:

“Do not be unbelieving anymore, but believe.”

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today's reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• Jesus greeted the disciples in the gospel twice with the words “peace be with you”. What is “peace” for you? Has there ever been a lack f peace in my life? Is there a lack of peace now? How do I deal with his?
• This gospel is John’s version of the Pentecost. In this passage He invited the disciples to “receive the Holy Spirit.” Do I believe the Holy Spirit dwells in me?
• What if this passage is less about the clerical notion of the priest’s ability to forgive sins, but instead is about our own ability to work with the Holy Spirit in forgiving others.? Whose sins do I need to forgive?
  What sort of sins would you consider “unforgivable” and thus, retained? Do you think Jesus would refuse to free anyone of his or her sins?
• Do I have a role in the healing of division or anger in my little world? Are the disciples often called to more than they are capable of at the moment? Are we?
• Is coming to belief for me a sudden epiphany as it was for Paul or is it a more gradual experience as it seemed to be for the post-resurrection disciples? Have I even found faith hard?
• Is there a climate of unbelief in our society? What in our culture undermines trust/belief? What supports it?
• Thomas was called “the twin”. Could that refer to both his trusting and his skeptical self? Can we be both believing and disbelieving at the same time?
• Clearly, Thomas was disappointed in what had happened the previous week; maybe he was disappointed in himself… Does disappointment with parts of my life or with my own behavior isolate me from others or from God?
• When Thomas was separated from the community, found faith more difficult. In what ways as my communal experience strengthened my faith? What are the challenges to this in a time of pandemic?
• From “Faith Book” a preaching service of the Southern Dominican Province:
  Who are the people who have most influenced us in our faith? What current stumbling block limits a deeper faith is us?
• From “Sacred Space”, A service of the Irish Jesuits:
  Do I demand “proof” of Jesus’ presence in my life and in the world? Can I set those demands aside and surrender to what Jesus wants to impart to me?
  Are the doors of my heart locked? Am I afraid—afraid that my well-ordered ways of thinking and doing things might be turned upside down if I let Jesus in?
• Like Thomas, do I ever place conditions on my faith/belief? Am I open to where God’s spirit may be recognized?
  Is it enough to say “I believe”? or “My Lord and My God”?
• What in my personal life tests my faith? What strengthens is? What weakens it?
• The emphasis on the wounds of Jesus in this gospel reinforces our recognition of the humanity of Jesus. Is it hard for me to identify with Jesus true humanity?
• Do I really believe that Jesus is like us, with wounds of love, wounds of hate, and signs of suffering?
• What do I see as “wounds” the Church (the body of Christ) has received from the world, past and present? What do I see as the “wounds” the Church has inflicted on itself? What do I see as the “wounds” the Church has inflicted on others?
• “Blessed are those who have not seen, but believed”
  Does this imply somehow that we should have no doubts, or is this praise perhaps for John’s community who have never seen Jesus but believe in him, even through their doubts and fears?
  By extension, could it apply to us who have not seen, who may have doubts, yet choose to believe in the ultimate goodness that is Jesus?
  

Meditations

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:

freely adapted from “Sacred Space”, a service of the Irish Jesuits:

Imagine you are one of the disciples there in the room when Jesus first appears. How shocked are you? Are you fearful? Comforted? Why do you think Jesus shows you his hands and his side? Does everyone in the groups “see” that this is really the resurrected Jesus? Does it happen to each of you all at once, or is there a different pace of recognition for each of you?

In my role as disciple in the upper room, am I at all hesitant to believe what I am seeing? How do I feel when Jesus says: “Peace be with you”? What does it feel like when Jesus breathes on me and tells me to receive the Holy Spirit? Do I have any idea what he is talking about? When Thomas returns, do I rush to tell him what excitement he has missed? How do I feel when he rejects my testimony and demands some sort of proof? Do I feel this is this a rejection of Jesus or a rejection of my own personal experience of Jesus?

When Tomas actually does encounter Jesus himself, he seems to forget his former need for proof. Did Jesus look into his heart and see the need that was there?

In my own life, do I ever feel that my experience of Jesus is special to me, and feel superior to those whose belief is harder won or even non-existent? In my own faith experience, do hope that God looks beyond my first reaction, my hasty words, and sees the need in me for love, for reassurance, for comfort? I sit quietly in Jesus’ presence and listen for his voice, being open to whatever he offers me. I resolve to give Jesus not just my intellectual belief, but to give him my heart, because he has already given me his.

Poetic Reflection:

Malcolm Guite wrote a wonderful poem about how Thomas’s experience is also ours:

“St. Thomas the Apostle”

“We do not know… how can we know the way?”
Courageous master of the awkward question,
You spoke the words the others dared not say
And cut through their evasion and abstraction.
Oh doubting Thomas, father of my faith,
You put your finger on the nub of things
We cannot love some disembodied wraith,
But flesh and blood must be our king of kings.
Your teaching is to touch, embrace, anoint,
Feel after Him and find Him in the flesh.
Because He loved your awkward counter-point
The Word has heard and granted you your wish.
Oh place my hands with yours, help me divine
The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine.

Poetic Reflection:

This is a lovely meditation on a poem by Denise Levertov, late a professor of English at Stanford University, who converted to Catholicism while she was here in her sixties and who wrote a Mass for the Day of St. Thomas (also called Mass for the Sunday of St. Thomas). The poem is taken from a book called The Stream & the Sapphire, which chronicles Levertov's journey from unbelief to faith.
From the blog “Eleison”:

Especially on this Sunday I am reminded of the poem “St. Thomas Didymus” by Denise Levertov. In her poem she exquisitely expresses both Thomas’ doubt as well as the beautiful revelation of the risen Lord. She draws a parallel between Thomas’ doubt and the epileptic’s father who exclaimed, “I believe Lord, help my unbelief.” Often, like Thomas, I struggle with doubts of my own. I often doubt that God will tend to me and provide for me as I walk the narrow way, stewarding my sexuality. I fear loneliness, rejection, isolation, and unhappiness as the result of my celibacy. However, I find much comfort in knowing that like Thomas I can express and speak aloud my doubts and like Thomas not be rejected for my doubt but met by the Risen Lord so I may cry, “You are my Lord and my God.”

“St. Thomas Didymus”
by Denise Levertov

In the hot street at noon I saw him
a small man
gray but vivid, standing forth
beyond the crowd’s buzzing
holding in desperate grip his shaking
teethgnashing son,
and thought him my brother.
I heard him cry out, weeping, and speak
those words,
Lord, I believe, help thou
mine unbelief,
and knew him
my twin:
a man whose entire being
had knotted itself
into the one tight drawn question,
Why,
why has this child lost his childhood in suffering,
why is this child who will soon be a man
tormented, torn twisted?
Why is he cruelly punished
who has done nothing except be born?
The twin of my birth
was not so close
as that man I heard
say what my heart
sighed with each beat, my breath silently
cried in and out,
in and out.
After the healing,
he, with his wondering
newly peaceful boy, receded;
no one
dwells on the gratitude, the astonished joy,
the swift
acceptance and forgetting.
I did not follow
to see their changed lives.
What I retained
was the flash of kinship.
Despite
all that I witnessed,
his question remained
my question, throbbed like a stealthy cancer,
known
only to doctor and patient. To others
I seemed well enough.
So it was
that after Golgotha
my spirit in secret
lurched in the same convulsed writhings
that tore that child
before he was healed.
And after the empty tomb
when they told me He lived, had spoken to Magdalen,
told me
that though He had passed through the door like a ghost
He had breathed on them
the breath of a living man-
even then
when hope tried with a flutter of wings
to lift me-
still, alone with myself,
my heavy cry was the same: Lord,
I believe,
help thou mine unbelief.
I needed
blood to tell me the truth,
the touch
of blood. Even
my sight of the dark crust of it
round the nailholes
didn’t thrust its meaning all the way through
to that manifold knot in me
that willed to possess all knowledge,
refusing to loosen
unless that insistence won
the battle I fought with life.
But when my hand
led by His hand’s firm clasp
entered the unhealed wound,
my fingers encountering
rib-bone and pulsing heat,
what I felt was not
scalding pain, shame for my obstinate need,
but light, light streaming
into me, over me, filling the room
as if I had lived till then
in a cold cave, and now
coming forth for the first time,
the knot that bound me unravelling,
I witnessed
all things quicken to color, to form,
my question
not answered but given
its part
in a vast unfolding design lit
by a risen sun.