From doubter to great missionary, the story of St. Thomas can be our own

John 20:24-29

Experiencing doubts about your faith is a common experience.  Sometimes people have difficulty believing in the existence of God.  Others are uncertain about whether Jesus Christ is truly God.  There are also those who struggle to accept various teachings proposed by the Church.  Today we celebrate the feast of St. Thomas, often called “Doubting Thomas”.  He is something like the patron saint of those who doubt.  By looking at His life we can discover an important lesson about the role of doubt in the life of Christians.

From the Gospel we learn that Jesus is there to support us when we experience doubts.  When we struggle with disbelief, Christ will always be there to help us, to help lead us back to belief in Him.  Initially Thomas doubted the Resurrection.  When the Apostles told Thomas that they had seen the Risen Christ, he doubts it. He says he cannot believe it unless he sees it with his own eyes.  The interesting thing is that Thomas keeps searching.  Though he has doubts he continues to spend time with the Apostles.  Thomas does not walk away. Because Thomas keeps searching, Jesus has an opportunity to reveal Himself to Thomas, to show Thomas the holes in His hands, feet and side.  Likewise when we experience doubt it is important for us to continue searching.  We should never give up when we experience doubts.  When we do this Christ will work in our life to satisfy our struggles with the faith.  He can do this in many different ways.  For example, if we have difficulty believing in the existence of God, perhaps through the beauty of a sunset we will be convinced that there must be a loving God who created this.  Or if we are struggling with a particular teaching of the Church, through a conversation with somebody or through a book that we may read, the issue may all of a sudden “click” in our mind, it may make sense like it never has before.  As long as we continue to search for the truth when we experience doubt, Jesus will eventually satisfy our doubts as He did for Thomas.

After experiencing struggles in our faith it is possible to become a great follower of Jesus Christ.  Once our doubt has turned to belief we can become a more fervent and effective follower of Jesus Christ than before.  In the Gospel we see this already with St. Thomas.  After Jesus appeared to Thomas, Thomas proclaims what is one of the strongest declarations of faith in the New Testament: “my Lord and my God”.  After the Ascension of Jesus, Thomas went on to become a great missionary.  Ancient tradition tells us that St. Thomas travelled through the Middle East and eventually settled in India.  All along the way Thomas spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.  Many Christians in India call themselves “Thomas Christians” because they recognize that their faith came to them through Thomas.  I think that Thomas was so great a missionary because he himself had first struggled with doubt.  This made him better suited to tell other people about the Resurrection of Jesus, people who would also experience doubt about the whole idea.  We find a modern day equivalent in Jacques Maritain, a great French philosopher who passed away in 1973.  As a university student, Maritain struggled to believe in God.  One day his life changed forever when he heard a lecture by the philosopher Henri Bergson.  He was convinced that absolute truth does indeed exist and eventually entered the Catholic Church.  Maritain went on to become a great philosopher, defending belief in God and the Christian worldview. Maritain was able to do such a great job defending the faith to those who were skeptical because he himself had first experienced doubts in his own journey.  His life shows that once our doubt has turned to belief we can become a more fervent and effective follower of Jesus Christ than before.

At different times we will all probably struggle with doubt and uncertainty in our faith.  As long as we continue to search for truth in the midst of our doubt, Jesus will eventually make things clear to us.  Today let us commit ourselves to never stop searching for the truth when we struggle with doubts about our faith.

The uncompromising, extreme call of Jesus

Luke 9:51-62

Extreme things are very popular these days.  Extreme sports are all the rage.  Even food is extreme.  One manufacturer of Nacho chips has released a whole line of chips with extreme flavors.  If you are in the shopping aisle and the choice is between the extreme chips and the regular ones, you would have to take the extreme flavors.  I know I would feel pretty weak if I didn't  my ego would definitely take a hit.  Society’s obsession with all things extreme is more than just a marketing gimmick.

Many people go to extreme lengths in different areas of their life and we respect them for this.  We admire individuals that are radical in the way they pursue their career, hobbies or interests.  I once read an autobiography from a NAVY SEAL, a type of elite soldier, that explained in detail their training regimen.  It was shocking the see the commitment of these individuals: early mornings, constant work-outs, strict diet, and physical pain.  When I compared myself to these NAVY SEALS I couldn’t help but feel like a wimp. We could consider many other examples. Think of the sacrifices people in business often make in order to pursue their goals.  Or consider the endless training made by athletes to excel in their sport.  Even think of artists who often live a life full of radical choices for the sake of their art.  Many people go to extreme lengths in the way they pursue their career, hobbies or interests and we tend to admire them for this.

Though we see the need for radicality is various areas of life, we tend to think it is OK to accept a soft kind of Christianity.  Although we can appreciate that other areas in our life must be demanding, we can get uncomfortable affirming that following Jesus is likewise demanding. Let me illustrate this. Imagine for a moment that your goal is to become a great hockey player. If this is the case, you readily will go to early morning practices, spend a lot of money on equipment and make many other sacrifices.  Though we accept this is necessary to get good at hockey, we can become hesitant or resentful when the Church asks us to come to Mass each Sunday, go to confession and give money to the poor, things necessary to grow into a good follower of Christ.  We have grown accustomed to thinking that Christianity should be undemanding. Many have openly said that Christianity is something for weak people, a kind of crutch.  Karl Marx famously said that it was the “opiate of the masses”. Just look how Christians are represented on television.  There is the famous example of Ned Flanders, the Christian in the TV show “The Simpsons”.  This character always comes across as weak, a push-over, definitely no NAVY SEAL.  Though we tend to see the need for radicality in various areas of life, we tend to think Christianity is undemanding and soft.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes it abundantly clear that following Him is requires great sacrifice.  Christianity is not for the faint of heart but requires total commitment, it is radical and extreme.  We are called to love Jesus and follow Him without counting the costs.  In the Gospel Jesus is fighting against a kind of soft Christianity, one that does not demand much from us.  Someone says they will follow Him but only after they bury their father.  The person who said this did not just have their Father pass away.  It is a way of saying:, “ok Jesus I will follow you when I am older, now I am busy”.  A modern day equivalent are those who put off getting involved in the Church or Christianity until after they are retired.  Their schedule does not allow it at the moment.  Jesus is also clear that following Him is not for those who want a life free from difficulties.  Just as Jesus had “nowhere” to rest His head, we Christians need to accept a certain amount of risk, challenge and uncertainty in our life.  As Pope Francis has recently said, “the Church is not a health-spa”.  According to Jesus, following Him is far from being a crutch for the weak.  Christianity is demanding, challenging, something that takes our whole being and commitment.  The saints best understood this, they realized that Christianity was something extreme.

Today, perhaps more than any time, following Jesus is a very radical proposition because it means that we are often going against social trends. Being a Catholic today requires us to make sacrifices we will often be going against the current of popular opinion.  The extreme nature of Christianity is most clearly born out in the lives of the martyrs, those who have given their lives for Jesus. It is important to recognize that the past 100 years there have been more martyrs than ever before.  But what about the rest of us? For us too, Christianity needs to be lived in a radical way.  Jesus’ demand that we forgive our enemy is an extreme action, especially in a world bent on revenge.  In our busy and noisy world choosing to take time each day to pray to God in silence is a demanding proposition.  Striving to live the Christian vision of sexuality is a very radical decision.  As more and more families find their weekends busy and packed, making the choice to prioritize going to Mass and go each Sunday, even if it means sacrificing other activities, is a radical choice.  Working to build a world that is more just and peaceful rather than getting swept along in the flow of consumerism and materialism is an extreme thing to do. Following Jesus today demands dedication, courage and that we make sacrifices, it is by no means a crutch for the weak.

In Greek the word for conversion is metanoia.  Metanoia literally means “change of mind”.  Today I invite each of us to make such a change of mind.  Too often we think that Christianity is something undemanding, soft and unchallenging. We need to remember that the life Jesus calls us to demands total commitment and all our energies.  It is something extreme indeed.  Today let us make this change of mind.

Making our cross a crucifix

Luke 9:18-24

Let us begin by considering a few questions.  What is the one thing that is part of the life of every human being?  What is the one thing common to all human experience?  Did you answer “suffering”?  We all suffer.  Suffering can have many causes, physical, emotional, or because of relationships, but all people for all time and in all places have suffered.  Next, what do you think is common with the way that all people deal with suffering?  I think that all people share this common thread in the way they deal with suffering: they want it to go away.  This is only natural.  All people, regardless of when or where they lived have had to suffer.  All people have also looked for ways to remove this suffering from their life. 

This holds true for the Jewish people at the time of Jesus because they were suffering as a nation and were looking for a way out.  At this time, the people of Israel were undergoing a communal suffering for which they desperately sought relief.  For a moment, put yourself in the shoes of the Jewish people at the time of Christ.  Throughout history God has promised you, as a people, a land. But throughout history you have been occupied time and time again: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Greeks.  Now the most recent occupiers are the Romans.  This is a great cause of sufferings and you want it to go away.  You are seeking liberation from this suffering.  In particular, many are expecting God to send a political liberator: the Messiah.  This Messiah, or anointed one, is expected to expel the Romans from your land, through force if necessary, and re-establish the Kingdom of Israel. Jesus simply did not fit the bill of this kind of political liberator.  In the gospel we see this.  Jesus asks who people think that He is.  A prophet? Sure. The Messiah? Only Peter recognizes Jesus as this.  The people were expecting the Messiah to liberate them, to free them from the suffering caused by oppression from the Romans.  But Jesus did not fit this bill.  The Jews at the time of Jesus were suffering and looking for relief.

We are very much the same: we look for a Messiah who can take away our suffering.  Today we think the same way as the Jews at the time of Jesus: we each have our different struggles and suffering and we seek for someone who can take it all away.  We can see this fact just by the type of movies that are popular.  Recently another Superman movie has been released.  This movie is in fact just another in a long line of super-hero movies which all seem to have the same premise.  First we find people who are suffering.  Maybe it is a kind of personal suffering, like an illness or individual tragedy, or a communal suffering, like an entire city is under siege by a criminal.  These people desperately want their suffering removed.  Enter the superhero.  This hero, whether it be Superman, Spider-man or Batman, always comes to remove suffering.  The superhero is the kind of Messiah that the Jews at the time of Christ were expecting.  The fact that these movies are so popular proves that we have this desire: in our suffering we desperately seek someone to remove the cause of suffering from our life.

Jesus, however, did not come to remove our suffering but to give it value.  Christ came not so that we wouldn't have to suffer anymore, but rather He transformed suffering so that it now has great meaning and purpose in our life.  In today’s gospel Jesus makes it clear that both He and His followers should expect to suffer: if we want to follow Him we must take up our cross and follow Him.  Jesus does not come to take away our suffering.  Jesus does forever change suffering by giving it value and meaning.  By His own suffering and death Jesus saved the world.  With Jesus, suffering now has redemptive value.  Our suffering too can have value; it can help bring ourselves and others closer to God.  Suffering does this in two ways. First, when we or someone we love suffers it often leads us to call on God for help because we realize that there is something outside our control.  We realize that we need God.  Because of this, times of suffering can be moments of conversion.  Secondly, suffering has value because when we unite our sufferings with Jesus we can help bring other people closer to God, even those we do not know.  Like it was for Jesus, our suffering can be redemptive.  When we accept our suffering and out of love “offer it up” for others, we, like Jesus can help bring people closer to God through our suffering.  Jesus did not come to take away suffering but to give it value and meaning.

We all need to learn to suffer well.  In our life it takes time to accept and deal with our suffering as Jesus intended.  Suffering is not of itself good.  As we know suffering can have an incredibly crushing effect on people’s lives.  We should not go seeking out suffering, but when suffering enters our life we need to learn how to suffer as Christ intended, so that our suffering can be redemptive, so that it can bring ourselves and others closer to God.  I think that there are two ways we can do this.  First, we need to ask Jesus to be close to us during our times of suffering.  We have to ask for His help to accept our suffering and to cope with it.  Archbishop Fulton Sheen had a wonderful expression to describe this.  He said, “we need to make our cross a crucifix”.  We cannot suffer alone.  We need ask Jesus to be with us.  Second, I think it can be very helpful to offer our suffering for someone in particular. When we suffer we can accept it and ask that God uses this suffering to help or to bless someone in particular.  For example we can pray that God uses our suffering to help a family member who is far from the Church or someone we know is passing through a difficult time.  We can also offer our suffering for people we do not know.  I have heard of people who offer their sufferings for poor children or for priests who are passing through difficult times.  By inviting Jesus into our suffering and by offering our suffering for someone in particular, we can learn over time how to suffer well.

Suffering is a universal part of the human experience.  We cannot avoid it.  Jesus did not come to take away our suffering.  He came to give our suffering value and meaning.  Through our suffering He wants us to participate in the redemption of mankind.  Today, let us try to look at our life and identify a particular suffering that we are having difficulty accepting.  Let us invite Jesus into this suffering and offer it for someone or some group in particular.  In this way we can make our cross a crucifix.