After Mass one Sunday, a man said to the priest, “You know, Father, I’ve been attending Mass for many years now and you always talk about the same old thing, ‘Christ is born’ or ‘Jesus is risen.’” The priest didn’t recognize the man and asked him when he normally attended Mass. He replied, “I come faithfully every Christmas and every Easter.”
In today’s gospel, Thomas is like that man. He was away from the gathering of believers that Sunday evening when the Risen Lord appeared to them. He did not believe their testimony. He wanted to see and touch the wounds of Christ for himself. He wanted physical proof.
The Risen Lord turns Thomas’s initial doubt into the great confession of faith, “My Lord and my God!”
The name Thomas means twin, yet the gospel makes no mention of who his twin is. I think it’s all of us. We are very much like Thomas. We too often absent ourselves from gathering with the disciples and then wonder why our faith is shaky and doubt whether Christ is really, truly risen from the dead.
Why is this important? Because unless we gather with other believers and unless we experience the presence of Christ in our midst, we will not receive the divine gift of the Risen Lord: the peace of Christ.
What is this peace that Christ gives us? It doesn’t mean we’ll have no difficulties. It doesn’t mean we’ll experience no dangers. It doesn’t even mean we live lives free of controversy or confusion. It means that as we live our daily lives of faith in an increasingly hostile world, that despite all opposition, that despite all kinds of problems, failures and setbacks, that even though our world may be collapsing all around us, our hearts are calm, our spirits remain strong, our minds abide in peace because the risen Lord is with us and within us.
After receiving the peace of Christ, the apostles experienced increasing opposition and persecution because they dared proclaim Christ crucified and risen. But it was the peace of Christ that sustained them when they were cursed, beaten, arrested and even killed. It didn’t matter how much the world raged against them. They knew the battle was already over, the war was already won, the victory already assured.
May each of you experience that profound peace today and every day. It is the peace the world cannot give. It is not the peace that comes from humiliating, defeating and destroying our enemies, but rather it comes from our refusal to think and act like our enemies, and to destroy them—not by killing them—but simply by recognizing them as fellow sinners in need of the same mercy, forgiveness and peace of Christ, as are we all.
May the peace of Christ take you from confusion to conviction, from doubt to determination, and from fear to faith.
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