04/24/2022
SUNDAY REFLECTION
Second Sunday of Easter / Divine Mercy Sunday
The story of Thomas Didymus is one of movement from skepticism to faith. At first, he does not believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. Although he had accompanied Jesus to Bethany and witnessed how Jesus raised the dead Lazarus to life, this has not created in him any readiness to believe in Jesus’ resurrection. Only after Jesus has spoken to him directly and addressed his doubts in a very personal way does Thomas “surrender” and exclaim, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus then addresses Thomas and, through him, the Christians of later generations, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
The future disciples must accept a new type of relationship with Jesus: a post-glorification discipleship. It is believing without seeing the historical signs of the earthly Jesus but relying on the testimony of the believing community, now incarnated in the very text of the Gospel of John. The Gospel has precisely been written “that you may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name” (v 31).
Two wounded hearts. Jesus invites Thomas to touch the marks of the nails in his body and of the soldier’s lance in his side (heart). Jesus, as it were, speaks from his wounded heart, a heart full of love, a heart from which life-giving graces now flow. Jesus invites Thomas to “heal” this heart by believing and, in the process, heal his own heart, too. Both hearts have been wounded during Jesus’ passion. Both can now become “wounded healers.” In the case of Doubting Thomas, his story is “healing” with its assurance that if we believe that Jesus is alive among us—even without seeing him—then we are living a life that is nourished by the spring of salvation: “Rivers of living water will flow from within him [from his heart]” (Jn 7:38).
#sundaygospel #easter #catholic #WeDoALLfortheGospel
