You'll See

Gospel: John 20: 24-29

Everyone has doubts in life.  There is not a single person who has gone through life with the assurance of absolute certainty about all things.  We human beings doubt, which is necessary in order for faith to exist.  Today's feast is a reminder that we all doubt.  It is also a consolation that we are provided moments of lucidity and clarity that help to sustain our faith throughout our lives, moments that will help us when the doubts return.

For Thomas it was this encounter with the Risen Lord.  For each one of us it is unique.  It may be the encounter with another person.  For another person it may be an experience of nature's beauty and awesome power.  For still others it may come in a moment of existential crisis when an insight has been given to us that brings meaning to our lives.  Moments of grace are all around us.  Which one that becomes our moment of insight  is up to us to discover.

So we should not worry about our doubts.  We cannot know faith without them, just as we cannot know light without darkness or white without black.  At moments we see only darkness and black, but light will come if we allow it.  Remain open to these encounters with the Risen Jesus in all these different ways and our faith will be restored, our doubts will ease, and our love will expand to carry on the mission of mercy and care for others.

Pigs or People?

Gospel: Matthew 8: 28-34

What would we do for another person to see them freed from the demons that torment them?  How many people see their loved ones in the grips of addiction or mental illness - and what they would give to see their loved one made whole again, or even for the first time!  What that person in the grips of their demons would not give in order to be liberated from what has oppressed them for so long! Imagine the joy they would feel at being set free!

Yet, the people of this town in today's Gospel portion feel otherwise.  They do not at all rejoice at seeing these two people freed from their demons.  They are more concerned about their livelihood of tending swine - an unclean practice in Jewish law and therefore sinful! - than with the welfare of two fellow human beings who have suffered for so long under the torments of their demons.  They beg Jesus to leave their town.  

Consider a nation that calls itself Christian and that takes away assistance to the poor in order to demonize immigrants, refugees, migrants, and foreigners in general.  How often do we beg Jesus to depart from us in the person of the poor and the stranger we refuse to help and whose misery we have caused with our own actions!  How often do we find money for sports stadiums for the rich by cutting services to the poor!  We prefer the city of pigs to the city of God.

The Ultimate Fear

Gospel: Matthew 8: 23-27

Storms are a familiar occurrence.  They happen so often that we should not be surprised by them at all.  And yet we become fearful at their presence in our midst. Why? We fear the loss of life and property, to be sure.  But property is a replaceable thing and we ought not be attached to our things anyway.  Yet the amount of money we spend on extra storage units, alarm systems, and guns to protect our stuff indicates we are a long way away from Jesus' ideal.

And the fear of dying?  Well, this is the ultimate fear, an event even more familiar to us than storms, for everyone will die one way or another.  Storms remind us that we do not get to choose the manner in which we die.  We could indeed die in this storm, but is that such a bad thing? Are we afraid of what lies beyond death? Are we afraid that nothing lies beyond death? All of this suggests we have some regrets about how we have lived life to the present time.

Jesus rebukes the disciples - and us - in fearing death and storms.  If we truly are loving God and others, what fear should we have of death?  If we have lived the best version of ourselves, what regrets should we have?  How many storms in our life are merely illusory and of our own making? Today is a day for reflecting on why it is that we are afraid of such things and addressing those issues in our lives.