Today’s readings: Acts 5, 12-16; Apocalypse 1, 9-13.17-19; John 20, 19-31.

On this Sunday immediately following Easter, the Scriptures narrate how in the early stages of the development of the Christian faith, believers in Jesus Christ continued to sense his presence.

There is a sharp contrast between the Jesus showing his wounded hands and feet to Thomas and what we read from John’s Apocalypse about the “figure like a Son of man, dressed in a long robe tied at the waist with a golden girdle”. In the former case, Jesus invites Thomas to touch him; in the latter, it is he who touches John.

Faith evolves, and there is always space for a deepening of insight in our grasp of the mystery. Cardinal John Henry Newman compared the early history of the Church to the opening chords of a symphony, when the subjects that were later to be brought out one by one are introduced all together in a concentrated burst of creativity.

Like Thomas, we want signs that can calm down our doubts and ambiguity. We know that we live in a culture that demands accountability even where belief is concerned. We are all children of a culture that is not easily convinced. As former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams observes, mistrust is the result of our sense that too often we feel we are at the mercy of someone else’s agenda.

Artists have often depicted Thomas touching Jesus. Yet the text does not give any such indication. Because Thomas’ confession “My Lord and my God!” cannot be elicited by seeing or touching. It is not because he is seeing Jesus in front of him that he believes but rather, he sees Jesus as Lord and God because he believes.

Jesus and Thomas, rather than simply physically in each other’s presence, gaze deeply into each other’s lives. This is what provokes Thomas’ confession. At times, it is terrifying to look directly into one’s eyes, and this was what actually made Thomas become so introspective into the intimate mystery of Jesus risen.

Normally, and rightly so, we speak of the Resurrection as demanding our faith. But our standpoint, even as believers, remains always a human standpoint. Thomas wanted to see with his own eyes and touch with his own hands the wounds of the risen Jesus. And we may point an accusing finger towards him for this.

Humans use their hands to touch, explore, trace and feel the world outside them. We use the word ‘touching’ to describe a story which moves us deeply. Even St John, in his First Letter, insists he is only proclaiming that “which we have heard, seen, watched and touched with our own hands”.

So strictly speaking, there is nothing to be scandalised about if Thomas wanted to see and touch in order to believe. The senses also have their role in believing. Believing is not just a question of the intellect or the will.

Very often we think that changing course in our lives is only a ‘will’ issue. It is, in fact, not always verifiable that where there is a will there is a way.

We should not see the body as an obstacle to belief. It is through our body that we can gaze “the infinity of interiority”, as John O’Donohue writes in his book Anam Cara.

It is in and through the body that the soul becomes visible and real. This is what we may call the spirituality of the senses, which keeps us always on guard against extremist anti-body spiritualisms.

Unfortunately, even in a religion based on the Incarnation, the body is demonised and held to be source of evil and ambiguity. We fail to grasp that at the end of the day, inner life and intimacy of soul long for a form that can be seen, felt and touched.

There is nothing wrong in desiring signs, and Thomas’ longing to see and touch Jesus need not be discarded as pure unbelief.

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