Emily, one of our parish’s cantors, and her husband Matt had a baby on Easter Sunday. She sent an email with pictures. Perhaps because of that, I was struck by this Sunday’s entrance antiphon: “Like newborn infants, you must long for the pure, spiritual milk, that in Christ you may grow to salvation, alleluia.” As every new mother knows, newborns have tiny stomachs, stomachs that need to be refilled every few hours. No wonder new moms and dads get so little sleep.
How much do I – do we – still long to grow in Christ with that much insistence? This particular Eastertime, when so much is closed down, how can I use the extra time I have to grow in Christ?
Can I ask the Holy Spirit that I might desire Christ Jesus ever more and more?
As our first reading tells us, the early Church longed for Jesus’ return and adopted a lifestyle that put little stock in worldly things, but lived in the unity that Paul would later speak of as the Body of Christ. They consciously devoted themselves to prayer and the communal life, to the teaching of the apostles and to the breaking of the bread. The breaking of the bread is the earliest name for the Eucharist. They shared everything and cared for those in need. They longed for Christ and grew in the love of God and neighbor.
This hope and desire for Christ is found in the community that Peter wrote his First Letter. As he says, “Although you have not seen Him you love Him; even though you do not see Him now yet believe in Him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
Unlike Thomas, we don’t see Jesus Christ in the flesh and touch him physically, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t touch Him in our hearts and with our lives. Those of you who are extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion may have the experience that I sometimes have of giving Communion to someone and realizing later that the person resembles Christ. Even more, many who have worked with the poor and the sick, and gotten to know them, realize the truth of Jesus’ words: “Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do to Me.”
But often we can be like Thomas. God is not working as we want God to work. If you are really God, then show me – and this is how you are to do it. Guess what, though: who are we to tell God how to do it? Shouldn’t we know better by now?
Each of us has our own Thomas moments. We can be like the fussy baby. What does he or she want now? Fortunately, God doesn’t get exhausted. Sometimes God even gives in to our fuss.
For Thomas, Jesus replied, “Put your finger here and see My hands, and bring your hand and put it into My side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” “Thomas answered and said to Him,
‘My Lord and my God!’” Jesus said to him (and he says it to us, too), “Have you come to believe because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
Lord, help us to believe every more fully. Like the infant, may we long for the milk of Your grace, the grace of Your Presence. Come, Lord, feed us. We hunger for Your Presence. Help us to grow up in You.
Jesuit Father John Michalowski is parochial vicar of St. Peter Church in Charlotte. This commentary is adapted from his homily for the Second Sunday of Easter on April 19.