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#230238 - 04/13/07 08:07 PM
St. Thomas Sunday
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theophan
Moderator
Member
Registered: 11/27/02
Posts: 2685
Loc: Hollidaysburg, PA
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Christ is Risen!! Indeed He is Risen!!!
This weekend both East and West will celebrate the Sunday when Our Lord appeared to the disciples and everyone was present, especially St. Thomas.
Seems to me St. Thomas gets a bad rap from us. We have the phrase "doubting Thomas" in English that we paste on people who don't believe what we tell them.
But does Thomas really deserve that? When a child is told "trust me," he puts up his little hand and walks along--or at least until recently when that could get him kidnapped. But an adult instinctively gets wary when someone says the same thing--the image I use when speaking about this is that I grab my wallet because I know from experience that someone is out to do me out of something and that is probably money-related. "Trust me" to an adult is something we hear just before "gotcha."
So I ask, is Thomas' reluctance to believe in Jesus' Resurrection nothing more than a healthy adult response to a report from his colleagues? Is it really obstinate refusal to give a faith-based assent to the story of another? Is it, perhaps, a lesson to us to "discern the spirits" as Scripture would have it? Is it, perhaps, a lesson to us to be careful of the sources we put our faith in?
Is Thomas' example, perhaps, a model for us in this age when there seem to be so many sources that claim to preach the purity of doctrine but that have just something that doesn't sound quite right?
Thomas wanted to see and to touch in order to believe. In the Church we have so much that helps us in this way--we can see and touch and believe in and through the Church's liturgical life, Scriptural teaching, doctrinal purity. Do we test what we are told? Do we have to? Why or why not?
In testing and questioning, do we do so in charity? There are two ways of asking--one asks humbly and with the desire to seek clarity, perhaps even to admonish toward the truth received; the other asks with arrogance and hostility. The one is Christ-like; the other causes division. After the discipline of Great Lent, have we made a conversion of life toward the Christ-like or are we back on track with our own self-righteousness that causes division?
Our Lord warned that there would come times when people would say "here is Christ" or "there he is" and He warned us not to follow. Is Thomas, perhaps, heeding His Master's advice, even though the people telling him of the Resurrection are his closest friends?
May He Who rose from the dead, Christ Our True God, trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life, bless us in our pilgrimage now and always. AMEN.
Edited by theophan (04/13/07 08:08 PM)
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