Easter Blessings

Thank God for Thomas

And Thomas said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hand and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

For these words, Thomas will be forever remembered in history as doubting Thomas, the waverer, the wobbler in faith.  But I say, “Thank God for Thomas.”  This is why.

As human beings living an embodied life, we discover the world around us, first of all, through our senses, through touch, sight, hearing, and taste. My mom was okay with my examining things, seeing them and touching them, but she did get distraught when I tried to learn what a worm tasted like. Thomas only wanted to touch.

In matters of faith, St. Paul tells us in I Cor: 12 -13 that we now see “indistinctly as through a mirror.” Thomas believed in a risen, resurrected Christ in a body scarred by pain and suffering. I suggest that is the way we come to belief. An awareness of beauty in the stuff of the cosmos suggests to us the possibility that the fullness of Beauty exists. As Gerald Manley Hopkins writes, our earthly awareness is always of “pied,” but nevertheless, real beauty. An awareness of what is good and beautiful in the flawed, unfinished world around us gives us hope for the future of life on earth.

My prayer for myself and for you: do not allow the darkness of evil obscure the existence of light.

Sister Ruth Droege, OP