Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL BIBLICAL IMAGERY

(Fr Michael Boakye Yeboah: Vice Rector of St Gregory Seminary, Kumasi-Ghana)

DOUBT

            I have been following discussions on social media and I will not totally fault those who have been entertaining doubts in the power of God to save. It is not everybody who can hold unto his/her faith in the midst of adversity and pain. We have witnessed as never before thousands of people dying every day and I was shocked when last week it was reported that in Italy the situation has seen improvement because only 566 people died in a given day. Truly we are not living in normal times; how can 566 deaths be seen as a sign of improvement? Instead of us Christians holding onto our faith, doubt has entered the arena of many Christian minds.

            Doubt can simply be defined as “…to be uncertain about something.” Anyone who entertains doubt can be caught in a mental state in which the mind remains suspended between two or more contradictory propositions, unable to assent to any of them. Doubt on an emotional level is indecision between belief and disbelief. Like belief, doubt takes a lot of different forms, from ancient skepticism to modern scientific empiricism, from doubt in many gods to doubt in one God, to doubt that recreates and enlivens faith and doubt that is really disbelief.

            In today’s Gospel account the inspired writer tells us that Thomas was not in the house when the Lord revealed himself to them. Those present came to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus but on Thomas’ return he remained doubtful – still in the darkness of unfaith. His fellow disciples attempted to communicate their Easter faith to him, repeating the confession of Mary Magdalene: “We have seen the Lord”. Thomas’ response to the other disciples marks a second stage in his journey of faith. He is only prepared to lay aside his unfaith if the risen Jesus meets his criteria. “Unless” Jesus fulfills his conditions he will remain in his present situation of unbelief. Thomas demands that Jesus be “touchable.”

            Oh! Thomas; anyway, eight days later surprisingly, Jesus offers to fulfill Thomas’ conditions but he also commands Thomas to reach beyond his conditioned faith. The risen Jesus is the crucified Jesus. If Thomas wishes to have physical proof he can have it, but there is more at stake: “do not be faithless, but believing”. There is no indication in the text that Thomas performed a touching ritual. The requested ritual is forgotten as Thomas became bankrupt with words and the only words left in his treasury of words was “my Lord and my God.” Jesus looking at Thomas, shifted his attention rather to the generation to come and blessed them with a prophecy: “…blessed are those who see not and yet believe” (John 20:29). What God is doing in us is much too large to fit in the small container of our human experience.

            Hence, in the second reading, Peter expresses remarkable praise for those who love the Lord without having seen him, specifically for those who love him in “indescribable and gloriously heavenly joy” rather than out of a burdensome faith. We are not the ones who grasp Christ and anchor ourselves to him, rather, Christ has caught up with us and grasped us (cf. Phil. 3:12).

            This “experience” of a faith hurrying towards its goal of hope makes Christ essential in the Church’s community. The first reading says exactly that. Thomas’ doubt set him apart from the disciples’ fellowship; Jesus reintegrated him into this community. It is a fellowship of “common prayer”, common meals, and even common goods. At its deepest level this community’s faith in Jesus Christ was held together by the commonly celebrated Eucharist, for it is here that the believers finally comprehend that this community is not something they have constructed by themselves on a purely human level, rather that it is an institution of the Lord. Only in him and through him do they together constitute the Church, in which each individual’s faith is strengthened by the faith of all the others, like many strands twisted together to make one rope.

            It is this community faith that we should use to face the battle against the corona virus pandemic. We will win the battle as a community of believers; this is not the time of doubts no matter the conditions. We need to keep faith in the Lord.