Our Gospel for this Sunday is remembered as the story of doubting Thomas — this in spite of the fact that Thomas makes the most resounding of all acts of faith in Jesus to be found in the whole Gospel of John. It should actually be remembered as a story of the faith of ‘believing Thomas’. That we identify more readily with him as the figure of doubt indicates he is just that bit nearer to our own experience!
St. Augustine tells us we should not feel deprived because we have missed out encountering Jesus in the way Thomas did. We can still meet Christ by living together in unity and harmony in the same ways described by the early Church experience of him whenever they came together for the breaking of the bread, of listening to the Word contained in the Apostles written account, and by sharing their material goods as an outward expression of the spiritual grace and peace they wished to bring to everyone in the world.
We can take comfort in the way Christ enters through the locked doors of our hearts and tells us “Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive will be forgiven”. Jesus then puts his hand into our sides to heal our human hearts so that time and again the peace and joy, the healing and the reconciliation that his Spirit brings enables us to be “already filled with a joy so glorious that it cannot be described”.
The many other signs of the Lord’s Resurrection which were not included in John’s account are being carried out by the ongoing ministry of the Christian community in every age, bringing hope and reconciliation to a world that is wounded, starving, alienated and in need of God’s healing touch - “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing this you may have life through his name”.