By Fr. Francis Carvajal

2/54.1 Jesus’ appearance to the Apostles in the absence of Thomas. Apostolate with people who have known Christ but who do not keep up their relationship with Him.

The first day of the week,[1667] the day on which Our Lord rose from the dead, the first day of the new world, is a day full of incident: from very early [1668] in the morning when the women go to the tomb, until very late [1669] at night, when Jesus comes to comfort his closest friends: Peace be with you, he says to them. When he had said this, He showed them his hands and his side. On that occasion, Thomas was not with the other Apostles: he was not able to see the Lord or to hear his consoling words.

This is the Apostle who had said on one occasion: Let us go too and die with him. [1670] At the Last Supper he had expressed his ignorance to Our Lord in the simplest possible terms: Lord we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way? [1671] Filled with the deepest joy, the Apostles would have looked for Thomas throughout Jerusalem on that very same night or the next day. As soon as they found him they would not be able to tell him quickly enough:We have seen the Lord. But Thomas, like all the others, had been deeply affected by what his own eyes had seen: he would never forget the Crucifixion and Death of the Master. He doesn’t give the slightest credence to what the others have to tell him: Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe. [1672] Those who had been his companions during those three years and with whom he was united by so many bonds, would have repeated to him in a thousand different ways that same truth which was their joy and their certainty: We have seen the Lord.

Thomas thought the Lord was dead. The others assure him that He is alive, that they themselves have seen and heard him, that they have been with Him. That’s what we have to do also; for many men and women Christ is, as it were, dead, because He hardly means a thing to them. He counts for almost nothing in their lives. Our faith in the risen Christ impels us to go to those people, to tell them in a thousand different ways that Christ is alive, that we unite ourselves to him by faith and love every day, that he guides and gives meaning to our lives.

In this way, fulfilling that obligation of faith to make the truth known with our example and our word, we contribute personally to the building up of the Church, like those first Christians who are mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles: And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women. [1673]

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