FEAST  OF  ST.  THOMAS 

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.