Homily – Second Sunday of Easter (A)

Today’s liturgy gives us an invitation to come back to our first beginnings.  We remember that God asks us to remember that our sins are washed away in the waters of Baptism.  We have a new birth in the Spirit in Baptism and Confirmation and we are redeemed by the blood of Christ, who died and rose for us.  We remember the constancy of God’s love when we say, ‘give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love is everlasting’, but we remember also the reading from 1 Peter, who tells us in the midst of trials: “Through your faith God’s power will guard you until the salvation which had been prepared is revealed at the end of time.  This is a cause of great joy for you even though you may for a short time have to bear being plagued by all sorts of trials, so that when Jesus is revealed your faith will have been tested and proved like gold.” (1 Peter 1:6-7)

Karl Rahner once explained that our Alleluia is not only because of a past event, but it is because we proclaim a beginning that has decided the remotest future.  Like the community of Acts, rather than being borne down by the burdens of everyday, in the midst of our suffering we are asked to live the future.  Jesus’ words in the Gospel: “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you”, and “Receive you the Holy Spirit”, are a reminder of the powerful advocacy and help which is available to us, so that the living message of Christ, which comes to us because we have freely believed, is something which is powerful for our transformation and for eternal life.

We can be like Thomas and say, ‘unless we see the holes that the nails have made’, or we can say, ‘Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.  At Easter we are caught up into the dynamic of what God can do, transforming human hearts.  Remember it is our God who rose from the dead who can give us hope and who invites us to live according to his pattern, now and always.

We do not merely recite in a dreamy way, ‘Happy those who have not seen me, but still believe’, but we set about living the consequences of belief in a Christian way of life.  Notice that when Thomas first had said unless he can see and touch he would not believe, when confronted with the reality of Jesus he said, “My Lord and my God”.  When he added the words “my God”, he took a step beyond the human relationship between disciple and Master into a new one, where we are brought into the presence of God.

This is what Saint John is trying to tell us as strongly as he possibly can.  When we meet our God in the reality of Easter, truly through faith and baptism we have become a new creation and the power of the Easter Sacraments may not only live in our minds and hearts, but may give us the reality which will lead to eternal life.

The question that is put before us is whether we live for now and the experiences of the human and normal are those which we follow.  For Thomas seeing is believing, but Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen”.  Like Thomas we are a sceptical people with a mindset of the enlightenment in the eighteenth century.  We move from a concept of truth based on authority alone to a desire for logical proof and tangible evidence.  However, the resurrection cannot be accessed by reason alone.  Jesus calls us to examine the basis of our belief.  Do we believe in Jesus?  Have we encountered him?  Is he trustworthy?  We look at our professional faith in the light of the doubting Thomas and his coming to the fullness of belief in the resurrection.

We believe in Jesus because he is God and the faith, which he gives, is life-giving, lasting and not counterfeit.  On this Low Sunday we leave aside doubt and we take on full belief.  We are those who have not yet seen and yet believe.

By Archbishop Denis J. Hart