Blessed are Those Who Believe

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

St. John's Gospel was the last of the canonical Gospels to be written. By the time the sacred writer penned this famous Gospel, several different issues were very much on the minds of the Christian community, not the least of which was the fact that most of the eyewitnesses to the life, ministry, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus had died. As a result, the community began to wonder how they would be able to pass on the faith to others since they would not be able to rely on testimony from those who had actually walked with Jesus. The story of Thomas in the twentieth chapter of St. John's Gospel is the evangelist's answer to that question.

The name Thomas, we are told, means "twin." One of my Friday Bible Study students shared something with me from a local parish bulletin that I found very interesting, and I would like to share it with you: It is pretty likely that while growing up many of us knew a set of twins. In North America roughly one out of every eighty live births is a set of twins. And we are familiar with the similarities and differences between identical and fraternal twins. Social scientists and medical researchers love to study twins because they can ferret out key data with fewer variables that need explanation. What is often most intriguing to researchers is the parallelism that may occur in following a set of twins until a certain event or experience sets the individuals off on different paths. Twin studies have proved valuable over the years in areas such as drug dependence, learning disabilities, geriatric medicine, and depression. We may miss it in the reading of today's Gospel, but Thomas, the protagonist of the story, is a twin. The Greek word "Didymus" and the Aramaic "Thomas" both mean twin. So where is the other half? We are never introduced to Thomas' brother (or sister for that matter) in John's Gospel. Did he (or she) die? Was he (or she) a follower of Jesus? The fact is, we just don't know. What is clear in the Thomas story is that the appearance of Jesus after his resurrection shows the two faces of believers, categories that are a matched set just like a pair of twins. There are the believers who have seen the risen Lord: Mary of Magdala, Simon Peter and the rest of the Twelve, and of course, Thomas. And then, like Thomas' unknown twin, there are all the rest of the believers who have never seen the risen Lord. We, and every generation of Christians since the apostles, fall into that group. We have not seen, but we still believe. And, according to Jesus, we are just as blessed and just as much a part of the family as those who have seen and touched the One who is risen from the dead.

As the writer of the quoted piece points out, we don't know anything about Thomas' twin. We can't even assume that his twin was a believer. However, the story of Thomas is obviously written with us in mind. The evangelist tells us that he has written so that we might come to believe. As is so evident throughout the fourth Gospel, placing faith in Jesus and coming to believe in him is the crucial issue of the Gospel.

This Sunday marks the end of the octave that follows Easter. The Gospel for this Sunday is repeated in each of the three lectionary cycles. The second reading for today's liturgy, from the first letter of St. Peter, reinforces the point made in the Gospel: Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (I Peter 1:8-9)