When I was little, I had a tendency to question everything. I had a hard time believing in things I couldn’t see. I could not see clearly the things that were right in front of me and I often manipulated the facts to serve my own purposes. I can remember countless conversations with my parents in which I wanted them to somehow conjure God out of an equation, explain the greatest mysteries of the universe or offer concrete proof that everything we read in the Bible is true.
“How do we know for sure that Jesus was God and God was Jesus?” I asked during one of my Doubting Thomas periods.
My mother’s response was immediate and firm. “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, there’s a good chance it’s a duck,” she said.
“But what if it’s a duck-billed platypus or a goose, which is in the duck family but not quite the same thing?” I retorted.
“Go ask your father,” she replied.
Dad was the philosopher and theologian of the family, so when I repeated my question to him, he opened his Bible and read me the portion of today’s gospel in which Jesus tells His disciples that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. I remember Dad marking the page with his finger, looking up and smiling at me as if that explained everything. However, I was not assuaged.
“That’s nice, but it’s just a game of words isn’t it?” I replied. “One person can’t be inside two beings at once. How could Jesus be fully human and at the same time, be in charge of Heaven and running the show up there? That makes no sense.”
My father asked me if I was sure about that. “Think about it. You have some of my traits inside of you don’t you?”
When I couldn’t argue with that, he went on. “Those traits of mine will be a part of you even after I am gone and because I love you and I think about you everyday, you are a part of me too. Why can’t that apply to God?”
I let that thought run around in my brain for a while. “Well, I guess it can but…”
He didn’t let me finish. “And Julie, right now you are my daughter, but someday you will marry and become someone’s wife. Maybe even someone’s mother. Will you stop being my daughter when that happens?”
“Of course not,” I conceded, momentarily stumped by his logic.
It’s really hard for us to confront the facts head on sometimes. The truth can be staring us right in the face and yet we will look above, below, around and through it trying to see it as something other than what it is. We analyze conversations we have with our significant others. We question the diagnosis our doctor gives us. We seek second opinions and we look for someone who will tell us what we want to hear because the truth is uncomfortable. It challenges our minds. It forces us to think differently and to have faith in that which may seem complicated.
Whenever I read the gospels, especially today’s, I take a certain amount of comfort from the fact that even those who were around Jesus during His time on Earth were like me in a lot of ways. They saw Jesus feed the multitudes, walk on water and raise the dead and yet they were still oblivious to what was going on. Faith is a hard thing to maintain on a consistent basis and though I long to be one of those people who are steadfast and unwavering in their beliefs like my mother, I revert to my old ways all too often.
Luckily, my father on Earth understood that and in illustrating what was possible in my own life, he gave me a glimpse of my Father in Heaven who also understands my human limitations, made me the person that I am and strives to help me see the truth even in times when it’s hard to face the facts.
Readings for Today’s Mass: Acts 13: 44-52; PS 98: 1, 2-3 AB, 3CD-4; JN 14:7-14
