Fr. William Fennelly: Jesus comes into the closed room, and for the first time, and gives the Holy Spirit to all of the disciples except Thomas, and then Thomas comes in. A few chapters earlier in John, Jesus says to the disciples on learning of the death of Lazarus, “let us go up to Jerusalem”, Thomas’ remark is, “yes, let us go and die with them”. This can be understood in many different ways, but to me, it sounds like he’s pretty sceptical by temperament. And, so here he is, and he’s not going to be easily convinced.
I think there are two problems. The first is by insisting that he actually put his hands in the wounds, he’s focusing on the physical resurrection of Jesus. And the whole point of Jesus giving the Spirit is, “That’s not the point. I’m not gonna be here physically. I’m going to be here through the Spirit.” It’s going to be a different kind of presence. But we can come back to that.
But the other problem is, he doesn’t believe his brother disciples the apostles. He doesn’t take their word. All of us come to faith because of other people, don’t we? Whether it’s our parents who had us baptised, or by someone’s example. But we stay in the faith because of what we see. It’s not just the spoken word, it’s the living word that draws us on. And by the living word, I mean the way we see people act. And I think the church very articulately gives us a clue as to what this means in that first reading, where we see the idealised community of disciples, of Christians, in Acts. Now, we know that’s an ideal picture, and we know from the rest of Acts, there were a lot of problems in the community, but at the end of the day, it was the way they dealt with each other and with everyone else that drew people to them.
And I think this is important, because I think the really important line in this Gospel is one that comes to us directly. Now, we’ve all seen movies or plays where one of the characters will speak directly to the audience, or read a book where the author says, and now, dear reader, and makes a point..
And we see that in today’s Gospel, but we are spoken to not by an author, but by Jesus himself. When he says,” Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed”. That’s us. That’s you. That’s me. And what are the implications of this? Well, just as he sent the disciples into the world. We too, we have that same spirit. So we’re sent forth. We today are the presence of Jesus. Whether we like it or not. Whether we feel we’re up to it or not, it’s real.
I think the way that we act is something clear to describe at least, and it’s something in our control. People will say, well, you tell me that, but I have all of these bad thoughts, I get angry and prevaricate. It’s the decisions we make and the actions we do that we are accountable for. So we can have all kinds of bad thoughts, but what do we decide to do? How do we decide to treat people? How do we decide to treat ourselves?
For many years, I have worked teaching students, and I get called upon every now and then to give a little bit of advice, and I pass on the advice I got when I first started teaching. A wise person said to me, your students will remember very little of what you try to teach them. They will never forget how you treat them. And I think that is sort of at the crux of how we show Jesus to the world.
Today is a Sunday that also celebrates the mercy of God through Jesus. And so, I think it’s important that in treating others, we not forget to be merciful to ourselves as well. That we need not get discouraged. It’s important not to get discouraged. It can feel like we try and try again to no effect, but we shouldn’t get discouraged because God never gets discouraged in forgiving us. That mercy is always there, waiting for us. We don’t see his wounds, nor do we touch them; rather it is Jesus who both sees and touches our wounds. It’s a hard thing for us to believe that God really wants to be with us. It’s not something we have to make happen. We don’t go up to God. God has come down to us and he’s with us. So, as we go out today, let’s remember that, while Jesus does not have hands and feet in the world today. We do. And that’s our work.