Doubting Thomas
Last night I received a short message from a friend commenting on this new blog and I have been reflecting upon it ever since. “I enjoyed that. It makes me wish I still believed in God,” he wrote. “Me too,” I thought to myself.
The first thing one sees when entering the church where I currently reside is our chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is kept. Over the doors are the words, “My Lord And My God”, the same words once spoken by Saint Thomas when he realized that beyond all belief Jesus was indeed risen from the dead and standing before him. Thomas is a very appealing figure within Christianity and maybe even more so within American culture in particular. Thomas expresses what I think many of us feel when confronted with those who wish to share the faith with us. When the other apostles announce to him the good news that Jesus is risen he looks them square in the eyes and says, “don’t tell me, show me“. Thomas makes it clear by his statement that he desperately wants to believe what his friends have told him, but he needs solid evidence. “I’ll never believe it without probing the nailprints in his hands, without putting my finger in the nailmarks and my hand into his side.”
The area of the county where I grew up is called the Bible Belt. In Chattanooga we even went so far as to say that we lived in the buckle of the Bible Belt. One peculiar aspect of growing up in the Bible Belt is the number of times one can answer the door to find members of various churches who want to speak to you about whether or not you have been saved. If you were not saved, and we as Roman Catholics were never even considered to be Christians, they would begin to talk about why joining their particular church is essential in order to avoid the eternal damnation of your soul. Though I never doubted the sincerity of those who would show up regularly on my doorstep, I have often wondered if they do not turn more people away from Christianity than they bring to it. Most of us, like Thomas, need more than just words to be able to see Christ’s presence in the world. One of my favorite stories involving door to door evangelists involves a young girl who when asked, “Have you found Jesus?” replied in all sincerity, “No. I didn’t know he was lost.”
The courage of Saint Thomas allows me to understand that even when I feel lost, when it seems like God is completely absent and I can’t find Him, it is God who comes looking for me. Jesus is not lost, He is the one who seeks the lost, a group that included Saint Thomas and most certainly includes you and me.
About The Author
Hey, just so ya know it’s Sushirabbit, here.
I tried to leave a comment earlier, but I’m not big on the blog thing and I keep forgetting I have a gmail account.
Anyway, I like the previous bits alot and this as well. I’ve always considered myself lucky to have “felt” God in a loving way before I became a Christian. In some way I aknowledged that relationship early on in life and I think became immune to all the attempts by others to “step in between”.
I recently saw the new batman movie, and the Harvey Dent person strongly recalled an aquaintance– a person of strong charisma and good deeds, but who denies God and believes religion to be the “opiate of the masses”.
I’ve taken to standing up to these statements lately– Trying to call them out. The message or perhaps the tone I get from most of my “educated” friends, is that we Christians (and they typically mean Evangelicals (which even more hidden means Scary Creationists!)) are ignorant, naive. Belief in God in general and Christianity in specific is the mark of the unsophisticated and unschooled.
Anyway, when I was young before even college and Philosophy. I came to know that good and evil, and right and wrong are real. And the other thing I figured out was that it is universal. And on top of we have empathy that transcends language and culture.
So the last time my acquaintance brought up the opiate bit, and the men control bit, I asked who was doing the oppressing: God or Men? He pretty readily admitted it was men. Then I asked him did he believe in Right or Wrong, Good and Evil. Yes, was the answer. Where did he think that came from?
And this is where many people fall down in there thinking. Men, he said, invent right and wrong. And I think that is probably what most who share his kind of thinking would say… and they’d give all kinds of reasons, biological, psychological, all stuff that they got from someone else. Not really THOUGHT about themselves. But they’re thinking (and you can tell by the way they sound, and the way they look at you (if they do) or their friends conspiratorially), they’re thinking that Good and Evil is a lazy cop out and not in the realm of real thinkers. Ha! ابو علی الحسین ابن عبدالله ابن سینا; would get a good laugh at that! Aβιτζιανός. Yeah? Avicenna Ya know that great Persian dude that pretty much had it right on? Well if you don’t know who he is and what he taught maybe you shouldn’t go looking at me so condescendingly.
Lord, it would have been much easier if I’d read C.S. Lewis at 13 instead of in my late twenties.
I’d ask any of those secularist types to really think a bit about where right and wrong comes from.
So, didn’t mean to go off there. And wasn’t trying to do the Rood Awakening thing below, either, but I’ve thought a lot about all this, too my friend and I certainly don’t think it hurts to do so.
Love ya,
David
David,
When are we going to get together my friend?
You have me trying to read backwards and forwards! I don’t see a comment from earlier…but this one is here and it is a long one at that. Thanks!
One thing that I know is true. The joy I saw on your face when you came out of the baptismal font. That is real.