Second Sunday -Easter

Acts 4: 32-35. Ps 118 1 Jn 5:1-6 John 20:19-31

1. In 1909, exactly, a 100 years ago, an unknown writer said, “Today it is Europe’s turn to convert Asia and Africa. But in a century or two, it will be these countries that will have to bring Europe back to the true faith. This writer continued “Britain and its effeminate sons will be replaced by the Mongols, who have been slumbering for centuries.”

 If you look at your priests today – the colour of their skin, and the accent of their preaching, and their “difficult to pronounce names” do you thinks this is true?  The Pope, Benedict 16^th has been warning about encroaching secularism. This seems to be prevalent in the Church.

So what makes our Church truly Christian and what are the marks of our church.

In the creed, which we say soon after this homily, we will declare that the Church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. And this seems to be unfold in your lives by putting Matthew 25 into practice.

 I was hungry, thirsty, in prison and you gave me to eat, drink, and you visited me. However, we find that social services are already doing that, and perhaps even more efficiently.

2. We have two beautiful models of what the Church is and should be in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Gospel, in the story of Thomas and his conditions for belief.

 In the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that the early Christian community were one in mind and heart. What a wonderful description of the Church. However, today we are Catholics and Anglicans, Methodists and United, Lutheran and Calvinists, Mormons and Presbyterians.

 We are definitely not one in mind and heart. Some of us accuse the other of following the “Anti-Christ” or the false Christ. But for the Hindus and Muslims we are all Christians. It is a real scandal to them that we fight among ourselves and we are not united.  

In the Apostolic Times, they looked at Christians and said, “see how they love one another.” Today, they seem to look at us and say, “see how they club one another.”

3. The Christians in the time of the Apostles were united in mind and heart, because they gathered together in prayer. They followed the example of Jesus, who spent a large part of his short public life in prayer. Before any big event, we find Jesus in prayer: before the Sermon on the Mount, before choosing his Apostles, after the Multiplication of the Loaves and fish, before his passion and death – prayer in Gethsemane.

There are a lot of good things done in the Church, the food banks, the St. Vincent de Paul, the ladies of Charity, the out of the cold programmes during the harsh winters.   If, through prayer and a realisation that we have been made in the image of God, we reach out to those in need, it adds a new dimension to work and to the sacrifice put into these works. And so, we need not only to spend time in prayer, but we need to be seen as persons of prayer.

 A second quality from our readings, was a care for those in need. The communities were fairly small in the early stages. They were probably not more than eight to ten families. They knew each other well, they held their things in common and so no one was in need. This was the first example of communism in the best sense of the word.

 However, we now have over 2 billion Christians, of whom 1 billion are Catholic. It would be logistically impossible to hold things in common for this large number. However, we have seen church communities reaching out to others who are in need. People by nature are generous. We have seen this caring and generosity in times of national disasters like Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami and more recently the Terremoto or earthquake in Italy. Rich and poor alike have dipped into their pockets to help people they have never met, nor likely to meet. They reach out because these people were in need.

 In my personal life, I like to think of these acts as a following of the example of Jesus who washed the feet of his disciples on Holy Thursday. “Do to one another as I have done to you.”

This brings us to the Gospel, where we find an embarrassed Thomas who says, Unless I see the wounds of Jesus, I will not believe. Actually we should be grateful to Thomas. He asks for the marks of the true Jesus Christ. He asks for the marks of Christ’s passion and death. Thomas today would ask for the marks of the Passion and Death of Christ in those who believe in Christ and call themselves Christians.

Mahatma Gandhi was reported to have said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” And again: “If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today.”

Like James and John, we want to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus in the Kingdom, but we are reluctant to drink of the cup of which Jesus drank. It is not only Thomas, but I often wonder whether Jesus himself would recognize his marks within our church today. We love pomp and circumstance, incense and candles, glorious titles, we love places of honour. These are wonderful, but they are hardly the marks of the humble King who came riding on a donkey, whose crown was a  crown of thorns. The gold and diamond rings, were the nails that pierced his hands.

 Like Thomas, we too must look for the sign of the nails and spear in our own lifestyles and behaviour. If we cannot find them, then a good place to start would be like the Early Christians –“with prayer”.