A Homily for Low Sunday

+ “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in His side, I will not believe.” These famous words of ‘doubting Thomas’ which our Holy Mother the Church contemplates on this Octave Day of Easter, plunge us into the very depths of the scandal and contradiction that is the bodily resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. For whilst these words of St Thomas are by no means presented to us for imitation, they are words that we use often, frequently unwittingly, and the response they draw from Our Lord is instructive.
 
“Unless…” “I will not…” How many times have we uttered these words in respect of so many things, including matters of faith and vocation and the living out of God’s will in the circumstances in which God’s Providence places us each day? These are the words of a negotiator (at best) or of a terrorist (at worst). “I” am at the centre. “I” decide what is acceptable or not. “I” determine what I shall do today or in in future. If this egoism goes unchecked it rapidly descends into a subjectivism whereby “I” alone determine what is right or wrong, or who is good or bad. If the person thus diseased exercises authority over others, he becomes dictatorial, imposing his own will regardless of the law, fundamental human rights or any other constraint—a reality seen all too often in world affairs and sometimes even, most worryingly, in those of the Church.
 
The appearance of Our Lord to St Thomas, with its word-for-word rebuke of his ‘conditions’ for believing, removes the word “I” from the conversation. St Thomas no longer speaks about himself. He no longer lays down requirements. Rather, he encounters a reality greater than himself; indeed, he comes face to face with Reality Himself. Then, in humility, and I think we may safely say with great emotion and with tears, St Thomas utters his profession of faith: “My Lord and my God!” And in so doing he becomes a witness to the resurrection, and an apostle whom, as tradition teaches us, preached the faith in India unto the shedding of his blood.
 
The apostle and martyr that St Thomas became is a different man to the one whose vocabulary was limited to “unless” and “I”. And that which made the difference was the resurrection of Christ, indeed his encounter with the resurrected Christ. To borrow from St Paul, it was no longer Thomas who lived, but Christ who lived in Thomas (cf. Gal. 2:20) enabling him to be all that Almighty God willed him to be for His glory, for the salvation of his soul and of those of others.
 
My brothers and sisters, if we continue to stipulate conditions in respect of God, if “I” am at the centre of every thought and decision that I make, we shall remain in our inadequacy, insecurity and fear. We shall most probably also visit this anxiety upon others, contributing further to the spread of the cancer of subjectivism in the world and in the Church. So too, in all likelihood we shall become tyrants, small or great depending upon our influence, and set about enforcing our ideology regardless of objective reality. Truth, goodness and beauty shall be established according to our whims as long as we hold power.
 
However, if we encounter Christ, if we come face to face with His Resurrected Body—as we do in the Sacred Liturgy of this Easter season, and in the most superlative manner in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass every day—and if we have the humility of St Thomas and do not hold back the tears that the realisation of our inadequacy and stupidity causes to flow, if we profess our faith in Reality Himself and worship Him, as did St Thomas, our inadequacy shall be healed by His grace, our insecurities will be purged by the fire that shall burn within our hearts, our fear shall be replaced by courage. We shall become faithful servants and ministers of Truth in its incarnate, objective reality, and the exercise of any responsibility or power that is given to us shall be undertaken as a sacred trust for the good of others, not for our own aggrandisement.
 
Yes, we have celebrated Easter before. Yes, we have heard this Gospel passage proclaimed before. So be it. But through the Sacred Liturgy of His Church today, Our Lord Jesus Christ calls us, just as He did St Thomas to that faith which leaves conditions and egos behind and gets on with that to which He calls us to be and do. Starting today (not tomorrow).
 
As we encounter the Risen Christ anew this morning at this altar, let us beg the grace of St Thomas’ humility and faith, if necessary with the prayer “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” (Mk 9:24). Our Lord did not scold St Thomas; He called him to put aside his doubts and to have faith so that he could serve Him in ways and in places St Thomas could never have imagined. Here, this morning, the Resurrected Christ calls each of us to nothing less. +