Scripture Readings: Acts of the Apostles 5:12-16; Book of Revelation 1: 9-17; Gospel According to Saint John 20:19-31
We continue our yearly celebration of the Passover of Christ, whose triumphant resurrection from the dead is our hope and joy. Today the Gospel account describes Christ in the midst of his disciples “on the evening of that first day of the week,” the day Christ rose, not bound by time or space, but simply appearing in the midst of His disciples and extending the gift of peace.
However, Thomas the Apostle was absent for this wondrous appearance of Jesus, and demanded proof of the Lord’s resurrected state. Thomas, called to this day, “the doubter,” wanted to see and touch the wounds of the crucified Lord, now proclaimed as risen and seen by various people.
As then, so now, it is not always easy to accept the fact of Jesus’ resurrection. Many find it difficult to understand how it all came to be and its full meaning for humankind. Many want “proof,” as did Thomas, with the result of reducing faith to the senses, what can be seen, what can be touched.
We must never forget, though, that the deepest and most important aspect of our beliefs is the spiritual, which goes beyond “proof,” as does faith and love. Love does not depend on proofs, but simply is. On the other hand, as we give and we receive love, we find it expressed in various ways. The risen Christ does likewise. As love is something we believe in and hope for, so too is the risen Savior, in whom we believe and in whom we hope.
Our faith in the risen Lord hopefully grows as time goes on, since we should always desire more and more to know, love and serve the living God. If our faith were something totally grasped and understood, it would be too small. God in his mysteries, though, is always inexhaustible, never fully understood or completely explained, by God’s very nature of being divine. Yet our God is always near and desires to manifest Himself to us, as Jesus did to the apostles and disciples at the time of the resurrection.
In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus praises those who believe without seeing. We too, living centuries after Christ’s earthly sojourn, are called to believe that Christ, out of love for us, went to the cross, meaning He handed over His life entirely, shedding His blood even to the last drop. Such love did not stop there, however, but led to resurrection from the dead, that central event and mystery of our Christian faith.
God the Father’s work is complete now in Christ’s resurrection and we are witnesses to this fountain of immortality, no less than the first followers of Christ.
In the book called the “Song of Songs” from the Hebrew Scriptures, we find a beautiful statement about love. There we read: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it” (8:7). In the life-giving and Glorious Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have the greatest proof of Christ’s love, for love triumphs over death by the power of the Christ’s resurrection. This is new life at its best, being offered to each of us as well.
With this in mind during Paschaltide, the new life of the risen Christ is not something to be put off until the next life, but meant to be experienced even now to some extent, especially for us in the Holy Eucharist. In this Blessed Sacrament of the Church, instituted by Christ, who offered His own body and blood for us as the source of eternal life, Christ’s risen life is offered again, even daily, to those who are ready and willing to receive it, for our on-going spiritual nourishment and well-being.
It is a great act of faith to believe in this, of course, to accept and receive the risen Christ under the form of bread and wine. I don’t see Christ, but I see bread and wine, and therein lies the mystery: a call to accept in faith that Christ is present in the simple and humble form of bread and wine.
We must go beyond the senses, then, by a living and active faith, which brings us to say and believe that it is Christ whom we receive, with whom we are in communion.
Each of us, young and old, well and not so well, are invited by God to believe without seeing, to receive consolation and peace in the midst of the risen Christ, whose very presence produces peace. In the Eucharist we celebrate and partake of, we can truly “taste and see the goodness of the Lord,” as the psalmist expressed it so long ago.
Abbot Christian Leisy, OSB