Sunday Homily, April 12, 2015, 2nd Easter, B
Readings:
Acts 4, 34, 32-35 The community of believers was of one heart and mind.
Psalm 118, Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love is everlasting.
1 John 5, 1-6, Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God.
John 20, 19-31, Thomas.
Acts reminders:
Author: Luke, the same who wrote the gospel. He was an educated, urbane Jew.
Date: the years 75-80
Subject: This is a travel log, detailing the spread of Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome and the Mediterranean in between.
Today: we have a passage pretty universally admittedly idealistic. All is perfect and harmonious. We view a community which is a commune, a utopian vision of life and the foundation of communism.
Do Not be Unbelieving, But Believe
This week Rosemary and I will head south to Mobile, Alabama, where two events are taking place. First, we plan another reunion of my old ’58 class Jesuits will get together. Secondly, 50 years ago we graduated from Spring Hill College and there is a homecoming event staged by the college.
Of course, all this has me reflecting fondly on our years together. Three memories.
First, there was a neat spirit among the 25 or so guys I entered with. Most of these guys were amazingly normal, intellectually gifted, and some were amazing athletes.
Secondly, as a group we lived a rigorous monastic life. Silence, formal prayer times, work, study, and three recreation afternoons, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. We wore a black cassock & cincture or we wore long sleeved shirts and long pants, even to play touch football & baseball in 100 degree heat & Gulf Coast humidity. We took only three showers a week, a left over reflection of the old Catholic phobia about nakedness.
There is a story funny today about the odor or sanctity. This was how you could tell a fake Jew from a true Catholic during the time of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, say 1492. Catholics did not bathe, Jews did bathe once a week. Guess what the odor of sanctity was.
The third thing I remember is our life at Spring Hill College. For me it was a marvelous release from a cloistered life to life on a campus with guys and girls, not that we were allowed to, as it was termed, fraternize with the college kids.
I graduated 50 years ago with a degree in secondary ed, maybe grooming myself for administration in one of our 6 regional high schools. I also spent the three years studying Catholic philosophy in Latin. It was totally boring to me. We had the adversaries and we had to learn how to out argue them. We took our finals in Latin.
It was during these three years that a lot of my classmates began to question the whole process. It was Vatican II time, the murder of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King. At this time I never questioned. I just went along. I admired the guys, but was content. I survived because I played a lot of touch football and I took care of a fleet of boats & motors we used at a villa across Mobile Bay. I could go there every weekend and for two marvelous weeks in the summer. We also had three hot, excellent meals a day.
The overall training made me grow up quickly. I look back now, however, am somewhat embarrassed, and ask myself how could I believe in some of those practices. And I know. It was believe, believe in the process, in the company, in those who have gone through this before me, and look at them, how successful they are.
Doubting Thomas, the subject of our Gospel today, is a hero of mine. I think I would like to have been more like him in those early years. Which would have been impossible at the time, I know. I believed. Paradoxically, I think the training itself ultimately gave me the self-confidence and intellectual curiosity to enable me to have doubts & questions. Want to know when I started questioning? East Africa.
The danger with the "do not be unbelieving, but believe" statement is that it is a "do not think" statement. I become a sheep following the footsteps of whoever is in front of me with a feeling of security. Doubts can be scary, questions confusing. Without them I am less than fully human.
Like with Thomas, what are your doubts & questions. What do you do about them and how do you feel about them?