Saint Andrew Church

CONFESSIONS on Sunday after the 11:00AM Mass at St. Andrew Chruch

Grace builds on nature. More than a few books have been written about this concept. When St. Thomas Aquinas wrote those words he was referring to the fact that all of creation is a theatre of grace, the stage upon which the drama of salvation unfolds. Understanding this idea is important for us who struggle with our discipleship

             The idea is simple and elegant. For example, if God is real (and he is), then he has to let us know because we cannot successfully create God. The old theological joke is that in Genesis, we learn that God created us in his image and likeness and we’ve been trying to return the favor ever since. In reality, the best we can come up with is a partial description of the God who is beyond human comprehension. The burden is on God to let us know who he is. Our burden is to be vigilant in our anticipation of his revelation.

The gospel reading (Jn. 20: 19-31) offers an excellent example of the fact that grace builds on nature. Thomas was not with the other Apostles and disciples when Jesus appeared the first time to the terrified group. When they tried to give witness to Thomas about the incident, Thomas could not come to faith. Instead he declared that it would take seeing the nail marks and touching the wounds before he could believe. He was unable to believe in Jesus’ resurrection solely on the testimony of others. If grace was to be his, it had to be build upon his personal contact with the risen Lord – mediated through his senses of sight and touch.

Thomas gained the unfortunate designation as the doubter. While I understand this, a more accurate designation is Thomas the realist. Doubt is this the absence of faith: doubt is the posture of a believer who has a question about the faith. He or she is in search of deeper understanding.

Grace builds on nature. More than a few books have been written about this concept. When St. Thomas Aquinas wrote those words he was referring to the fact that all of creation is a theatre of grace, the stage upon which the drama of salvation unfolds. Understanding this idea is important for us who struggle with our discipleship

             The idea is simple and elegant. For example, if God is real (and he is), then he has to let us know because we cannot successfully create God. The old theological joke is that in Genesis, we learn that God created us in his image and likeness and we’ve been trying to return the favor ever since. In reality, the best we can come up with is a partial description of the God who is beyond human comprehension. The burden is on God to let us know who he is. Our burden is to be vigilant in our anticipation of his revelation.

The gospel reading (Jn. 20: 19-31) offers an excellent example of the fact that grace builds on nature. Thomas was not with the other Apostles and disciples when Jesus appeared the first time to the terrified group. When they tried to give witness to Thomas about the incident, Thomas could not come to faith. Instead he declared that it would take seeing the nail marks and touching the wounds before he could believe. He was unable to believe in Jesus’ resurrection solely on the testimony of others. If grace was to be his, it had to be build upon his personal contact with the risen Lord – mediated through his senses of sight and touch.

Thomas gained the unfortunate designation as the doubter. While I understand this, a more accurate designation is Thomas the realist. Doubt is this the absence of faith: doubt is the posture of a believer who has a question about the faith. He or she is in search of deeper understanding.

Thomas will never be accused of having excessive credulity – of believing uncritically. After all, when had there been a previous resurrection of the dead except through Jesus’ ministry?

             If Thomas made a mistake at all, it was not having doubts. It was his insistence that God be whom he expected, that God look like the God Thomas pictured in his head. He was suffering the effects of original sin. This is the common denominator that unites all humans who live long enough to develop the use of reason. It effects not only our relationship with God, but each other as well. When we have stopped listening or intuiting the needs of the other, we’ve stopped loving them. Perhaps the greatest danger to people who have made Cursillo, Marriage Encounter, DME or a TEC Retreat is to stop expecting God’s continuing revelation. The impact of these experiences is that nothing could be greater than that experience. This posture can be as damaging to a person as never having made their spiritual experience in the first place if complacency and self satisfaction are the end result.

Thomas gives us the most compact profession of faith found anywhere; “My Lord and my God!” What we can take away from this gospel includes the understanding that our witnessing to Jesus’ resurrection is not the same as Jesus’ making his presence known as risen Lord and Savior. Like the first disciples, we are the evidence of Christ’s resurrection. Continuous witness to the fact of Christ’s resurrection may lead us where we would rather not go, but wherever we go we can state honestly like Thomas himself, “My Lord and my God!”

Fr. Dan