The WORD in other words (2015) by Fr Cornelio Alpuerto SVD – University of San Carlos, Cebu City
Feast of Saint Thomas, the Apostle – July 3
Dear Thomas,
Allow me to send you this letter across the centuries because I have some points to clarify and sentiments to express.
You were absent when the Lord appeared to your fellow disciples gathered together behind locked doors on the very day he rose from the dear. When you came back to the group and they told you exultantly, “We have seen the Lord!” You were not feeling sorry for having been away from your community just at that glorious moment? Did you not perhaps come to realize that there is indeed a blessing for being with one’s community even (or, especially?) when there is a cause for grief.
“Unless I see the mark of nails in his hands and put my finger into the nails marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” That was your (proud?) retort, Thomas. so for you to see is to believe, right? But if one sees already, one does n to have to believe anymore, right also? Take your fellow disciple, fir instance. The word to you was not, “We believe in the Risen Lord,” but “We have seen the Lord!” It is not so that there in heaven where you are now, there is no need for faith anymore, nor for hope? Because what you believed in and hoped for you now posses. Yes, you enjoy the Beatific Vision! Truly then what remains is Love, and the greatest of the Three.
But really Thomas, from my vantage point, I find it truly amazing why you where so incredulous of your Rabbi’s resurrection, and why this Easter event should have caught all of you in the group by surprise. My reason? Simply this: On at least three different occasions Jesus made a rather solemn statement that he would be killed but that on the third day he would rise again. Were you not listening to him — you his disciples? His enemies remembered that statement and so they ran to Pilate to get him to station guards at this tomb lest his followers steal his body and make people believe that he, indeed, rose from the dead. Yes, Jesus’ important declaration registered in the minds of his enemies but not in the minds of his friends! Isn’t that truly amazing?
Like the good friend that he was to you, Jesus obliged: he appeared to your group again a week later, this time with you, Thomas, present. He utters the same greeting: “Peace be with you!” And now he confronts you, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving.” I wonder, did you still bother to put your finger into the nail marks and your hand into his side? I suppose not anymore, there was no need for that anymore. Here is objective evidence t its purest! Yes, objective evidence — isn’t that the criterion of truth? The bastion of unbelief that you were should now have really crumbled. And so, out of the septs of your heart, you cried out: “My Lord and my God!” I am touched at the core of my being with your heartfelt cry. I see it as the total surrender of unbelief, of pride, of arrogance on your part. It was both an act of faith and an act of humility.
Thank you, Thomas, for your profession of faith, “My Lord and my God!” Should I not say also, thank you for being so quick to believe? For you, by that very fact, provided a firmer foundation to our faith in the resurrection, based as it is now not only on the testimony of several who readily believed, but also in the testimony of one who did not readily believed. Yes, I believe in the resurrection on the word of trustworthy witness. Isn’t that what faith is? As the Risen One told you yourself, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
You know what? I have mad your “My Lord and my God!” my own profession of faith. Each time I visit the Blessed Sacrament, looking at the tabernacle, I would say, “My Lord and my god!” At each elevation of the Sacred Species at the Mass I would say, “My Lord and my God!” On receiving Holy Communion, and believing the the Real Presence is now in my hearth, I would say, “My Lord and my God!”
Thank you, my friend! I honor you not as the “Doubting Thomas”, as you are often referred to, but as the Firm Believer in the Resurrection of the God man. Please, pray for me!
Gratefully your,
Dong Alpuerto, SVD
