Gospel Based Chants

Jesus appears to his disciples

Best Used:Easter Season Yr A Week 2

John 20 :19 -31

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Thoughts about this track: By Michael Herry, fms and Fr Brendan Byrne, SJ

Three cheers for St Thomas, the patron saint for doubters, because who among us hasn’t been there from time to time, asking the same question: Unless I see the holes ……….. And further, even if we do give the consent of faith, how do our lives show it?

Finally, some beautiful words below on this Gospel from Fr Brendan Byrne, SJ: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”

As perhaps I’ve remarked here on earlier occasions, one of the very attractive aspects of the appearances of the risen Lord at Easter is the way in which he appears to people right where they are emotionally: the disciples huddling behind closed doors in fear; Mary Magdalene in her grief and weeping; the two disciples walking away from Jerusalem to the village called Emmaus in their disillusionment and loss of hope; Thomas in his stubborn refusal to believe.
So it is with the two appearances—eight days apart—recorded in the Gospel today. On Easter Sunday evening, the risen Lord defies the bolted door, comes among the fearful disciples, and shows them his wounded hands and side. His greeting is simple: “Peace be with you”.

“Peace be with you”. They have all let him down, deserted him in his hour of need. Yet they hear no word of reproach about that. All their failure, and indeed all the sinfulness of the world, has been swallowed up in the victory of God’s love upon the cross. Now Jesus breathes the Spirit on them to make them instruments of spreading that reconciliation to the world.

But, of course, one is missing: Thomas. And when eventually he receives their report about seeing the risen Lord, plain, blunt man that he is, he won’t believe it. He must have the evidence before his own eyes and touch it with his hands.
Then, eight days later, with divine “courtesy”, Jesus meets Thomas exactly where he is—not just physically but in his emotion and stubbornness of heart.
Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Doubt no longer but believe.

Whether Thomas did go ahead and touch Jesus, we do not know. It seems the evidence before his eyes was enough—enough to draw out from him—the obtuse, the difficult one—the most sublime expression of faith in the Gospel: “My Lord and my God”.

We owe so much to Thomas and his doubts. It was left to him to bring out the truth that the One standing before him was our God, still bearing in his risen state, the wounds inflicted on him because he “so loved the world” (3:16) as to “pitch his tent” (1:14) among us, bear the brunt of all the evil that the world could throw at him, and overcome it with divine love.
But that is not the end. Jesus adds a comment that brings us into the picture too. Thomas has believed because, like Mary Magdalene (20:16) and the other disciples present in the room, he has seen the risen Jesus. Others—succeeding generations of believers, including ourselves—will not see Jesus. Unlike Thomas, they (and we) have to believe simply on the report handed down in the Church from the beginning: “We have seen the Lord”. On them—on us, that is—Jesus pronounces a blessing:

You (Thomas) believe because you have seen me.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

In making this pronouncement Jesus is affirming that those, like ourselves, who believe in the resurrection, even though we have not seen the risen Lord, are not in any way at a disadvantage in comparison with those who did see him. We can have a living relationship with the risen Lord just as intimate and life-giving as that enjoyed by those who did see and hear him in those first Easter days.

A sentence we heard in our Second Reading today, from the First Letter of St Peter, matches this very aptly:
You did not see him, yet you love him, and still without seeing him, you are already filled with a joy so glorious that it cannot be described, because you believe.

This is what we come together to celebrate as a community, Sunday after Sunday throughout the year. We come to pass on the light we have “caught” from our risen Lord, to strengthen each other’s faith, simply by our presence. We come to listen together to Jesus, our risen Lord, speaking to us through his Word, putting before us again and again the challenging values of the Gospel, values that we want to pass on to our children; values that will keep our wider society truly humane and inclusive, rather than hard and competitive; values that look to the welfare of the vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society; that look to acting towards other people out of understanding and compassion rather than prejudice and fear.

The current difficult times can unsettle and challenge our faith—faith in the goodness and power of God. Jesus neither reprehends nor rebukes our doubts any more than he rebuked the disciples for their failure or Thomas for his lack of faith. He meets us where we are, just as he met Thomas in his stubborn refusal to believe. And on us he pronounces the Blessing:
Blessed are you who have not seen and yet believe Brendan Byrne, SJ.