Sunday, 4/3/16
I had a friend named Joe, a deacon in
a Christian Church, and he was more of a Christian than most of us Catholics
are. On this First Sunday after Easter I got to thinking of something Joe said
about admiring the way the Catholic Church followed its patterns.
(Like, on this first Sunday after Easter we always have the stories of Jesus appearing once when Thomas wasn’t there, then once when he was there.) Joe said his pastor made up his own services week after week.
(Like, on this first Sunday after Easter we always have the stories of Jesus appearing once when Thomas wasn’t there, then once when he was there.) Joe said his pastor made up his own services week after week.
As we let or imaginations carry us to
the scene of Our Lord’s second appearance, We wonder if Thomas or if anyone
else actually did put a finger in Our Lord’s hand or put his hand in the side
of Jesus. Do you wonder too about how really human his body could have been if
it could pass through locked doors.
As another matter, you should carefully
consider the last sentence in today’s Gospel. (In it John said he chose to tell
only stories that showed Jesus to be the Messiah, and about how we have life by
believing in him,) John left out many of the parables and miracles that we
read in Mathew, Mark and Luke. He selected his stories very carefully, with
each of them showing us how Jesus was the Messiah and how we we have life
through believing in him.
That was true of the story of
Nicodemus who believed that Jesus came from God, but no more. To tell us the
story of Nicodemus John cleverly told us that Nicodemus came by night. With the
Samaritan woman who did perceive Jesus to be the Messiah, John said she came at
noon.
In our efforts to fully understand
any individual Bible passage, it helps to know something about its author. We
are definitely told that in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation.”
To learn something about John, it
helps us to see that Our Second Reading today was written by St. John. It describes
the glorious impressive that the Risen Christ made on John. In it he said, he
saw the Christ wearing an ankle-length robe with a gold sash, and he told John,
“I am the first and the last, I am the one who lives. I hold the keys to death
and to the netherworld.”
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