Bring your hand and put it into my side

3 JULY (Jn 20,24-29)

Man is the way of faith. With the death on the cross and his burial the way of vision, contact and experience with Lord Jesus, ends. The Lord uses this way when human ways fail, are lost in the maze of their thoughts, get lost in complicated and twisted minds, unable to trace the paths of true faith. In these sad and painful situations the Lord always intervenes and puts the light of his truth back on the candlestick so that it gives light to everyone in the house.

The Lord never does things without being governed by his divine and eternal wisdom. He does not go to visit his disciples when they are all present. He enters the Upper Room when one of them is missing. He chooses this hour and this historical condition because he must give his disciples a very strong teaching. He must communicate to the whole world that the time of direct contact with Him is over. Contact with Him is in the sacraments, in the Word, in the prayer and in the community of believers. It is a contact of faith and no longer of experience. It is a contact that nourishes our faith, but does not excite it directly for its birth. The way of the birth of faith is man.

Thomas is excused because this teaching had not been donated yet. But we are not excused. A man is the way for the birth of faith in Christ Jesus. Nobody might prescind from man. If this is the new way of faith, the universal and not particular way, for everyone and not just for some; it becomes apparent that the person that is constituted a tool for the birth of faith in the heart, must operate in all as Lord Jesus has done. It is not enough to say: “We have seen the Lord,” or: “The Lord was in our midst.”Who has seen the Lord, who met him, who had visual and auditory contact with him, must necessarily change, must modify the structure of his being or his acting.

Faith does not start only from the preached word, it starts from the vision of the Christian who is the perfect model of Jesus the Lord. That is how St. Paul wants the Christian called to be an instrument of faith: “We cause no one to stumble in anything, in order that no fault may be found with our ministry; on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves as ministers of God, through much endurance, in afflictions, hardships, constraints, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, vigils, fasts; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, in a holy spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech, in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness at the right and at the left; through glory and dishonour, insult and praise. We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful; as unrecognized and yet acknowledged; as dying and behold we live; as chastised and yet not put to death; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things” (2Cor 6,3-10).

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

Even the final blessing of Jesus must be understood. Blessed are not those who believe without seeing. Blessed are those who do not believe through Him, but believe in Him for the vision of holiness, of truth, of justice, of love, of communion, of the mercy of his body and of his instruments of true faith. The man is indispensable for the birth of the faith. If he fails, faith dies. Today a lot of faith has died for us.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us instruments of true faith.