I always love this feast day because it is about the famous Saint Didymus or Saint Thomas. I always loved the name, Didymus. Today the Gospel gives us the story of “Doubting Thomas”.
Last week, I was driving around town and half listening to the radio. There was a secular reporter recounting the story of a Church going couple who were engaged.They were about to get married but the young man doubted the existence of God.His fiance would not marry him unless the man felt the same way as the woman. It was pretty boring the way the reporter told the story. I had to read into the story to see God’s hand at work. At the end the young man had that ethereal moment.
In a way we are all at different times in our life like Didymus or the young man on the radio. Loved ones die. We become homeless. We are rejected by someone that we think we love. We are tested, daily. We are frustrated and wonder why doesn’t God fix this if there is a God?
In reality Jesus knew that there would be people like Saint Didymus. One thing for sure is that God is not insulted or takes offense by our doubts. Listen to the words in our Gospel for today. 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.”
How do we arrive at that level of confidence that we are Blessed even though we have not seen?
Listen to the words from our first reading from Ephesians. You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit”
This scripture suggests and answer to doubt. We are no longer strangers or doubters. We are held together into a sacred temple in the Lord. We are all part of the stones of that temple and when one member is in doubt the faith of the others strengthens us.
The mortar that holds us together is the Holy Spirit.
Just like the young man’s story on the radio who doubted but turned it around and believed. None of this we do on our own. We believe as a community. Your faith encourages me and my faith encourages you.
Encourage everyone you see today.
God Love You Always
Bob Burford
