TRADITIONAL LATIN MASS SABAH

Sermon about the proofs of the Resurrection

Introduction

We have in the Gospel of today the famous story of St Thomas who did not want to believe the Resurrection of Jesus. “Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him: We have seen the Lord. But he said to them: Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (Jn 20;24).

Today let us consider the incredulity of St Thomas and the gift of Faith.

1. Incredulity of St Thomas

In the Gospel we see St Thomas falling into three major sins: the sin of incredulity, a sin against charity and the sin of presumption. Out of pride and overconfidence in his personal judgment, St Thomas refused to believe what the others could tell him about the resurrection of Jesus: he refused to believe the holy women; he refused to believe the two disciples of Emmaus; he refused to believe all what all the Apostles together could tell him about the Jesus’ apparition in the Cenacle on Easter evening; he refused to believe St Peter in spite of his authority as the chief of the Apostles; he even refused to believe the Blessed Virgin Mary who certainly talked to him about the resurrection of Jesus. In short, he refused to believe anybody, and doing so he sinned against charity, because he offended his companions and the Mother of Jesus, treating them, indirectly, as mad or hallucinated people. And, on the top of all this, with a foolish presumption, St Thomas dared to impose on God his own conditions for believing: “Unless I put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe”. 

We see in the Gospel that the Apostles and the Disciples in general were very slow to believe in Jesus’ Resurrection: to the disciples of Emmaus, Jesus said: “O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things!” (Lc 24;25), and about the Apostles it is said that “Jesus upbraided them with their incredulity and hardness of heart because they did not believe them who had seen him after He was risen again” (Mc 16;14). But St Thomas surpassed them all in incredulity, and God allowed this to happen in order to give even more weight to their testimony on Jesus’ resurrection later on. 

All this incredulity of the Apostles shows clearly that the Resurrection of Christ is not obvious, it is not in the natural capacity of our human reasoning and understanding to admit the fact of the Resurrection: indeed, according to what we can know by ourselves, no dead can come back to life by itself, nobody can give back life to a dead. And as to Christ, nobody has seen the soul of Christ leaving the Limbos, going back into His body laying in the sepulchre and then leaving the sepulchre. In short, we have no natural evidence of the reality of the Resurrection.

The Resurrection of Christ, and the Redemption which it is the sign of, are realities determined by Divine Will and realized by Divine Power. So, man with his natural capacities of understanding, cannot know, cannot believe, cannot accept these realities as true unless he is given a special assistance by God, a supernatural strength in his intelligence and will. Our Lord said: “No man come to Me, except the Father who has sent me, draw him. And I will raise him up in the last day.” (Jn 6;44). St Thomas’ attitude represents the natural reaction of our reason facing Divine realities.

2. Jesus’ intervention

In the Gospel, we see Jesus intervening directly on St Thomas to heal him of his incredulity, to give him that supernatural strength of mind and will, which we call the Faith: “Be not faithless but believing” (Jn 20;27). But before giving Thomas that supernatural gift of Faith, Our Lord Jesus granted him the signs which he asks for: “Put in your finger hither and see my hands. And bring hither the hand and put it into my side”. Not only we see here the goodness and the mercy of Our Lord Jesus towards St Thomas, but also we see how He respects our human nature: Our Lord does not want us to believe Him blindly, as if we had no reason. God has given us a reason by which we guide ourselves, He wants us to use it. So while Jesus asks us to believe what is beyond our natural understanding, in the same time He gives us signs by which we can see that it is reasonable to believe. 

When you consider the followers of other religions like Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Islam, and so on… you see the contrary: they believe blindly in stories on which are based their religions: nothing proves the reality of their stories, which are even often ridiculous and absurd, but yet they believe them. Such belief is unreasonable, and it is a sign that these religions are not from God.

Our Lord Jesus does not treat us like that. He asks us to believe and He gives us signs by which we can see clearly it is reasonable to believe and unreasonable not to believe. He asks us to believe in the reality of His Resurrection, and He gave clear proofs of it to His Apostles, in such a way that they could say with St John: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled… we declare unto you.” (1 Jn 1;1).

The Apostles could check that Jesus’ risen Body was a real physical body: “It is Myself. Handle and see: for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me to have.” (Lc 24;39); the Apostles could see Jesus’ human face and recognize Him as he was before the Passion; they could check that it was the same body which had been crucified: “See my hands and my feet” Jesus told them. 

The Apostles could check that Jesus risen from the dead had a real human life, capable to eat and to drink: “They offered Him a piece of a broiled fish and a honeycomb. And when He had eaten before them, taking the remains, He gave to them.” (Lc 24;42); that Jesus was capable to speak with them, to answer their questions; capable to reason and to explain to them the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. 

The Apostles could check that the risen Jesus had the same Divine Power as before the Passion, witnessing a new miraculous fishing. They could witness that Jesus had the glory of risen bodies, able to appear and disappear at will, to enter anywhere, “the doors being shut”. 

And on the top of all of that, Our Lord Jesus used the incredulity of St Thomas to add another proof witnessed by all the other Apostles, He told St Thomas: “Put in your finger hither and see my hands. And bring hither the hand and put it into my side”. 

After checking all this, the Apostles could say: “we don’t know how the Resurrection happened, but we know for sure that it happened”.

Conclusion

As He did to the Apostles, Our Lord Jesus gives us signs by which we can see clearly that it is reasonable to be Catholic, that the teaching of the Catholic Church is true, is from God. Our Catholic Faith is not blind. We are not Catholics because our parents were Catholics; we are not Catholics because it is part of our culture. We are Catholics because firstly we have been given by God the gift of Faith and secondly because we can see enough signs showing that it is really reasonable to believe the teaching of the Catholic Church, and unreasonable not to believe it. What are these signs? Let us mention: the historical testimony of the Apostles in the Gospels which are authentic historical books; the solid Tradition, constant and same teaching of the Catholic Church going back to the very beginning of Christianity; the wisdom, the unity and the holiness shining in the teaching of the Catholic Church; the material and spiritual improvement of the people who follow the teaching of the Catholic Church; the History of the Church and its miraculous expansion in the world; the direct and historical link of succession from the Apostles to the Pope and Bishops of the Catholic Church; the convergence of science with the Bible.

Let us be careful not to imitate St Thomas in asking for special and extraordinary proofs in order to believe: let us not be of these people who want to see miracles, to feel the Holy Spirit, who are thirsty for revelations and so-called prophesies: they want to have the evidence of what is supernatural, they want to feel what is beyond human sensibility. This is very dangerous because the devil can cheat them easily and they merit also Jesus’ reproach to St Thomas: “Because you have seen Me, Thomas, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen and have believed”, in other words: because you search for such extraordinary signs, you will have a lesser reward in Heaven.

The virtue of Faith is a supernatural virtue which only God can increase. So, today especially let us make ours the prayer of this man in the Gospel: “I do believe, Lord. Help my unbelief” (Mc 9;23).