A week ago the Church relived the pure joy of the Easter mystery: a tiny speck of candlelight shining in the darkness stirred hope in our hearts, the same hope that entered the hearts of the disciples on Easter morning; a rumor, spreading quickly, far and wide, that our brother who had died, was not held captive by death.  The rumor is true: Christ is risen from the dead!  This Messiah in whom we placed our hopes, who seemed to have failed, destroyed by the hands of men, has cast Satan down from his throne and freed us from our slavery to sin and death.  “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Death has no more power over us, and our lives are forever changed.  We live no longer in fear, but in sure and certain hope in the glory of the Lord.  We can trust that he is who he claims to be, because not even death, the great equalizer, equalizes him.   

And yet, today, despite the totally convincing events of last week, we already experience our first shadow of doubt.  The apostle Thomas, still caught up in his grief and his disappointment from the events of Good Friday, doubted that the Resurrection could be real.  Surely not. It’s not possible.  Wishful thinking.  If only I could see the marks; if only I could touch his wounds.  These ideas can come to us too: this can’t be real.  We can’t really know this; objectively, scientifically.  We might dismiss this as “just a faith thing.”  But that’s too easy.  We might feel the need to place our hand in his side in a modern sense, by the proof of empirical data, to believe that is more than just a legend.  But Christ’s hands and side are not available to us like they were to Thomas.  How can we know?  How can we really know?  Well, we know from the testimony of reliable witnesses whom we trust, whom we find convincing.  We do this all the time.  I’ve never been to Alaska, but I believe that it exists.  I don’t need to have seen it with my own two eyes, because I trust the people who tell me that it’s real.  It’s the same with our Faith in the Resurrection.  We have reliable witnesses and compelling testimony.  First among these witnesses are the 10 apostles who suffered death for the sake of this incredible truth; the thousands who were converted by this message in the first days of the Church; and the words of the New Testament, written by St. John, the other apostles or their students in the decades immediately after the events they chronicle: not pious legends, but testimonies about a profound reality, written by those who had experienced it, a reality which prompted so many men and women of all different stations and positions in life to give up their lives for Christ.  

This is our faith; this is the truth that comes to us directly from the apostles, like St. Thomas himself.  St. Thomas’ life was so completely overturned by what became an unshakable faith in the reality of the Resurrection, that he abandoned his former life and travelled even to the far-off land of India to spread this incredible news, and suffered martyrdom there: Thomas was willing to die rather than deny the Resurrection that he once doubted.  Every single apostle, in fact, except one, suffered the same kind of death rather than deny what they knew to be true: the only exception is St. John the Beloved Disciple, the Evangelist who stood with Mary at the foot of the cross. John had a different path from his fellow apostles, spending a long hard life dedicated to writing, to leading the Church, and to telling the world about the Risen Lord: and St. John has left us an incredible legacy of testimony to the Resurrection in his Gospel, his three epistles, and in the beautiful imagery of the Book of Revelation, some of which we have heard today.  We have these incredible records of the Mystery of Christ’s Resurrection in Sacred Scripture.  We have the witness of the apostles.  We have the example of the early Church.  And we have something even more powerful.  

Just as the Lord came to Thomas to confirm his faith 2000 years ago, he comes to us again today: here; now; on this sacred altar: the same glorified body that Thomas touched, that strengthened and confirmed his faith, is the same glorified body that will appear on this altar today, and that is present even now in our tabernacle: as he came to Thomas, he comes to us in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, the Holy Eucharist of his Sacred Body and Blood, to strengthen our faith in his Resurrection.  Let our prayer be joined to that of St. Thomas today and always: let us look upon the Lord as he comes to us; let us ask him to increase our Faith so that we can call out to him more and more each day: My Lord and my God.