Today’s gospel tells the familiar story of “doubting” Thomas. He doubted what the other apostles told him and who could blame him? No one had ever risen from the dead before, certainly not after such a gruesome death. This all changed when he saw the risen Lord himself a week later. How ironic that “doubting” Thomas was the first to say, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus’ next comment is meant for us as well. “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” How blessed we are!
There are times when we too doubt our faith. That is part of being human. If we didn’t doubt, we could never choose our faith. The faith we choose asks us to take a step, a leap actually, away from all that we can see, hear and touch, a step away from the limits of our rational capabilities and to step into mystery. The issue isn’t whether we doubt but what we doubt. Doubts in faith are normal.
When the chips are down, it takes courage and resolve for us to say, “I still believe, Lord. I believe in your word. I believe that your son became one of us, just as the Bible said he would. I believe that his sacrificial love on the cross earned for us the gift of eternal life. I believe that no matter what my eyes see or don’t see, my ears hear or don’t hear, no matter what my mind can determine, you are still there for me, loving me, filling me with a joy that doesn’t go away.”
In his mercy, God sees us as we are, human beings with doubts, but also people who have experienced his love. We may feel bad about having doubts, but his divine mercy is so great that God sees us not as people with doubts, but as people who are searching for him. That is why Divine Mercy Sunday fits so well with this gospel passage. Like Thomas, we are ordinary people called to have extraordinary faith.
Pope John Paul II was really an ordinary man who had extraordinary faith. Since the early years of his priesthood, he had a deep devotion to the Divine Mercy. Seventeen years ago when he canonized Sr. Faustina Kowalska, a humble Polish nun, he designated the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday.
Sr. Faustina served as a cook, gardener, and doorkeeper. The sisters in her community liked her but they did not understand her deep interior life, which included visions and prophecies that she recorded in her diary. On February 22, 1931, she experienced a life changing vision of Christ in which he told her, “Paint an image according to the pattern you see with the prayer, ‘Jesus, I trust in you.’ In due time with the help of her spiritual director, she found an artist to create the painting that was named “The Divine Mercy,” A copy of that painting now hangs in the Kaufman Room.
Devotion to divine mercy is nothing new. The opening line of today’s psalm says, “His mercy endures forever.” St. Peter reminds us, that God “in his great mercy gave us new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” This timeless message was first addressed to persecuted Christians in the area of present day Turkey and was meant to give them hope in the midst of their suffering.
We each face the trials of life and of faith in our own unique ways. Perhaps we face rejection or hostility because of our faith; perhaps our faith has cost us in terms of a career or friends; perhaps our cross is that of physical illness, mental anguish, grief, poverty, or loneliness. Whatever our trials have been, Peter encourages us to take heart, to keep our faith alive, to remember the hope we now have, and to look forward to that glorious “hereafter,” which awaits all those who remain faithful.
After he was elected, Pope Francis said, “God’s patience has to call forth in us the courage to return to him, however many mistakes and sins there may be in our life. Jesus tells Thomas to put his hands into the wounds of his hands and in his side. We too can enter the wounds of Jesus. We can actually touch him. This happens every time we receive the sacraments with faith. It is there in the wounds of Jesus, that we are truly secure; there we encounter the boundless love of his heart… maybe someone is thinking…my unbelief is like that of Thomas. I don’t have the courage to go back, to believe that God can welcome me and that he is wanting for me, of all people. But God is indeed wanting for you; he asks only of you, courage to go to him…Even if we are sinners, we are what is closest to his heart.”
The message of divine mercy is that God loves us, all of us, no matter how great our sins are. God also wants us to recognize that his mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon him with trust and seek his mercy and in turn be merciful to others just as he is merciful to us. We can keep that lesson in mind by remembering these ABC’s…
A: Ask for his mercy by approaching God in prayer often, repenting of our sins and seeking his forgiveness.
B: Be merciful. God wants us to receive his mercy and let it flow through us to others by extending love and forgiveness to others just as he so generously does to us.
C: Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know that the graces of his mercy are dependent upon our trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will receive God’s mercy.
Like Thomas, many once placed their faith in Jesus, and like Thomas, they later abandoned their faith in Jesus. Blessed are those who like Thomas have made that leap of faith in Jesus in spite of whatever fears and adversities they’ve met.