IT'S OKAY IF WE HAVE DOUBTS
INTRODUCTION
Today is the feast of St. Thomas
the apostle. He is famous for being the one who doubted. Hence his nickname:
“Doubting Thomas.”
So I decided to say a few words in
this homily about doubts and doubting.
The classic message of the gospels
seems to be: “Don’t be like Thomas. Don’t doubt. Have faith.”
So the message is we should not be
like him.
THEOLOGY MESSAGE
That was the message that I heard
from time to time when I was studying to be a priest. One should not have
doubts. The old teachers and theologians
that I had seemed to be men that did not have doubts.
However, in my opinion, the day
comes when we get to their age and we know the reality is: To be human is to
doubt.
So we are all like Thomas. We have
doubts.
Recently in the May 7, 2017 The Washington Post Magazine, there was
an interview by Joe Heim of Paul Scalia,
Catholic Priest.
The subtitle of the section was Just Asking. Father Paul Scalia - the son of Supreme Court
Justice Antonin Scalia - was asked, “Every person of faith that I’ve talked
with has moments of doubt in their faith. Have you ever experienced those.?
His answer: “I’ve been blessed
with having no doubts. Doubt is different from difficulty. I think a lot of people confuse doubt with
difficulty. They run into difficulties with believing, and they think that
means that they doubt. But difficulties are there so we can trust God more.”
When I read that I said, “I have
had doubts as well as difficulties.
As to doubts, I have had them more
about the divinity of Christ - about Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. I
sense less doubts about the existence of God because creation tells me there is
a creative force that created this universe - which could not exist without a
creative “mind” behind all that we can see.
As to difficulties, I have
difficulties with some of the answers the Church people gives to theological questions like: ways and means
to deal with divorce and re-marriage;
women priests, a married clergy, cardinals, etc. etc. etc.
So when Father Paul Scalia says he
has no doubts, I react by thinking, “best of luck guy”.
TO BE HUMAN
So my thought is this: to be human is to have doubts - doubts about
God, self, others.
Miguel de
Unamuno said, “La vida es duda
y la fe
sin la duda ex sola muerta."
Life is doubt,
And faith without doubt is nothing but death.
Wilson Mizner describes doubt as,
“What gives you an education.”
FIRST: DOUBTS ABOUT GOD
The day we have doubts about God
is a good day. I say this, because I would think that it could be the day we
stop seeing God as a thing and we start thinking about God as a person.
Hopefully, we then also start talking to him as a Person. That could be the beginning of deep way of praying.
Many people are like all those
people in the Bible who have gods made of stone or wood. And stone and wood are
things that we don’t have doubts about. They are there. They are solid. We
don’t give them a second thought.
We don’t have doubts about this
podium being here. It’s solid. It’s marble. But the day will come when it might
crack or what have you and it will need to be replaced or what have you.
Today’s gods are made of ink and
paper - words - in books or in mind - solid - till they get cracks.
My words on this written document
are first draft. In time I would hope I would make them clearer and with better
theology.
SECONDLY - SELF-DOUBTS
We also have self-doubts, doubts
about ourselves.
So what else is new?
We know this area better than anyone else. And as we get older, this experience of having self-doubts can return – the same self-doubts we had when we were teen-agers.
We’re talking with someone at a
get together – and suddenly the person we’re talking to starts to drift away –
first with their eyes – then with their body – and we’re standing there all
alone. I pause and think to myself, “Am I losing it?”
That’s the basic thought that hits
us. Then the feeling, “I guess there are other people more interesting than me
in the room.”
Or we’re talking with someone and
they start to fall asleep as we are standing there talking to them – and they
are only 2 feet away. I have experienced this at various times doing a
homily. Like a funeral I had the other
day. As I spoke, I was getting zero feedback from the body language of those in
church. I don’t give up, but I wonder, “Is there anyone here who is listening
or caring what I am talking about?”
THIRDLY: DOUBTS ABOUT OTHERS
We wonder about other people. Are
they here because they have to be here?
Obviously, we can’t know the
motive of others, but sometimes we wonder.
Take this poem by G.K. Chesterton.
I doubt it has anything about the child abuse problem - but we should have had
a lot more doubts about signs and signals that some priests and possible perpetrators
gave off. Here’s the poem of sorts:
John
Grubby, who was short and stout
And
troubled with religious doubt,
Refused
about the age of three
To sit
upon the curate’s knee.”
From
Poems [1915] “New Freethinker.”
So we have or ought to have doubts about others as well.
Doubts in this case has the
benefit of getting us to talk to ourselves.
CONCLUSION: THOMAS IS IN OUR CORNER
So my points today, would be: it’s
okay to have doubts. In fact, it’s human
to have doubts.
I sense that’s why Thomas is a
favorite saint. Okay Jesus says it’s better to have faith than to have seen -
but ….
In this sermon, I’m not telling
you to have doubts, but to get in touch with the doubts that you have: the
doubts that you have about God, self, and others.
It will bring us down a peg, to our knees, to the ground, to the humus. Isn’t that the truth - the reality - that we come from the earth and go back into the earth from which we came?
We were made from the clay of the earth and into the earth we will return.
It's after that where we really need faith. Is this life all there is or is there more because of Christ - the resurrection and the life. That's where we are called to be like Thomas - to put our finger into his side as we see Thomas doing in the Caravaggio painting on the top of this blog entry. Hi.