Sunday within the Octave of Easter, April 16, 2023

John 20, 19–31

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. 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.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”  Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to 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 into the nail-marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”  Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

St. Thomas passionately believed in Jesus.  When the Lord turned to go back to Judea, where the had recently tried to kill him, he counseled the other Apostles, who were resisting, “Let us go with him that we might die with him” (John 11, 16).  He was not speaking on mere impulse but from his great conviction that Jesus was the Lord.  All the more crushing for him, therefore, was the Lord’s crucifixion and Death.  The immensity of his grief may have caused him to avoid the company of the Apostles that Easter Sunday evening when the Lord appeared in the house where he had eaten the Last Supper with them, and where they had taken refuge from the Jews.  His refusal to accept the claims that the Lord was risen also come from his devastation.  That is why he goes so far as to say, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail-marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  That is, it would not be enough for him merely to see Jesus — he must touch his wounds.

Because Thomas’s doubt comes not from malice, as in the case of the Pharisees,  but from his grief, the Lord appears to him and bids him believe.  And Thomas does: “My Lord and my God!”  According to both tradition in the West and the testimony of the Christians in India, Thomas made his way through eastern lands, eventually arriving in India, where he preached the Gospel and founded the Church there.  Indeed, the Indians preserve a tradition according to which Thomas even visited China.  This would make him the most traveled of the Apostles, a proof of his burning belief in the Lord Jesus.

We can grow in our faith in Jesus by persisting in our belief in him through the good and hard times in our lives.  Regular reading of the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, helps, and meditation through the rosary is of great profit as well.  We help ourselves in these ways and God grants us grace too.  Most of all we should pray, and best of all we should pray before the Blessed Sacrament where, with our hearts, we can touch the wounds of Jesus.