Seeing Is Believing
by Sean Innerst

The Easter season is, of course, the highest point of the liturgical year. That is because it recalls the single most important event in salvation history—the Resurrection. The risen Christ is always at the center of our worship, but especially so in this season. The Lectionary readings for the season focus as much on the Church’s response to the risen Lord as on the Lord Himself.

This points to an important element in this series on the Sunday readings for Mass. Christ, whom we’ve identified as the principle, cause, and end of salvation history, and the interpretive key to the whole Scripture, has been extended through time and space in His Mystical Body, the Church.

This mysterious unity between Christ and His followers is itself a scriptural theme. St. Paul employs it often, teaching that the life of each Christian is a recapitulation (a repetition or repeating) of the life of Jesus. This was also a common theme in the writings of the early Fathers of the Church, particularly St. Irenaeus.

Since the life of each Christian is a repetition of the life of Christ, St. Paul can remind the Colossians in the second reading for Easter Sunday that they are dead, buried, risen, hidden in heaven, and destined to be revealed in glory with Christ, and that they ought to act as such. The message is simple but infinitely profound. Each moment of Christian life is capable of expressing this pattern of repeating the life of Christ.

Some Christians criticize the Church for venerating the saints. They think that including prayers and devotion to the saints diminishes the place of Christ. Yet, our devotion to the saints remind us that they repeat, by grace, the life of Christ in their own lives. The first reading for the Second Sunday of Easter gives a wonderful picture of devotion to the saints in the early Church, demonstrating the apostolic roots of today’s practices.

We read in the fifth chapter of the Book of Acts that “Through the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders occurred among the people. . . . the people held them in great esteem. . . . The people carried the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mattresses, so that when Peter passed by at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them. Crowds from the towns around Jerusalem would gather, too, bringing their sick and those who were troubled by unclean spirits, all of whom were cured.”

In his Acts of the Apostles, Luke shows that the power of Jesus has passed into the hands of the Church generally, and the apostles specifically. The Church, as the Body of Christ, functions like Christ as a source of forgiveness and healing after Christ’s Ascension to the Father. As Jesus performed “mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him,” (Acts 2:22) so now the apostles work “many signs and wonders” (Acts 5:12) to show that they have inherited the mission of Christ.

Acts 5:12-16

In the readings for the Second Sunday of Lent, it’s hard to imagine the kind of fevered atmosphere that surrounded the apostolic community in those days after the Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost. Luke’s clear implication is that the body of believers, particularly Peter, has taken on the aura that surrounded Jesus Himself during His public ministry. “Many signs and wonders” are attributed to the apostles. Just as Jesus cured all who came to Him, so too do the apostles cure all those who come to them. Seldom in human history is God’s power displayed so evidently.

In speaking of the sacraments, the Catechism says that all that was visible in Christ has now passed into those vehicles of His grace (cf. no. 1115). The same could be said of the Church generally, which was clearly the case among that first community in Jerusalem. It is telling that Luke uses a phrase that suggests the unity of the body of believers in Christ when he says, “men and women in great numbers, were continually added to the Lord.” He doesn’t say that they joined the community or that enrollment increased, but that the Lord increased. When the Church grows, Christ grows, until, in the words of St. Paul, Christ comes to full stature in us at the end of time (cf. Eph 4:11-16).

In the Church’s infancy she needed a special display of divine power to aid her mission of evangelizing the world. And at certain times and places God has seen fit to make His power visible in order to draw humanity closer to Him. What is so visibly evident in certain times is always invisibly present in the Church. The Church is Christ’s Body extended through space and time.

Revelation 1:9-11, 12-13, 17-19

In cycle C of the Sunday Lectionary we read from the Book of Revelation during the Sundays of Easter. We could call these the “I-John” readings, because all of them except one (the Sixth Sunday of Easter) feature an affirmation that John is the witness to the heavenly vision displayed in the pages of that mysterious book. What is it that John sees?

Much controversy surrounds Revelation. Some are inclined to look there for confirmation that the world is about to end at any moment. It’s not hard to find some pained attempts to see every word or figure in Revelation as being symbolic of some current event or personality. The Catholic Church, however, has always understood Scripture to be most at home in the Church and specifically in the liturgy of the Church. The liturgy is the place where we relate the saving acts of God recounted in the Scriptures to ourselves, and use that recounting as an act of worship to our saving God. The Church has from the beginning used the Scriptures for her public worship.

The Book of Revelation testifies to this in rather an odd way. To Catholic eyes, which are familiar with the outlines of the liturgy, the book discloses a liturgical format. Although the Church would not deny that the book has a prophetic character (all of Scripture has a prophetic character!), it was written more as a timeless scene of the heavenly liturgy rather than to describe the present historical moment. Jesus tells John that what he is about to see is “what is,” as well as “what is to take place hereafter” (1:19). Although the book clearly intends to be prophetic, it also is intended to be an expression of the ever-present worship that God’s creatures offer Him. Interestingly, Revelation 1:3 says, “Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear.” That is precisely what we do in the liturgy this week at the reading of this passage. Revelation is eminently liturgical. In this way, on its own terms, it is best read and understood. Two specific clues to this can be found in our reading this week.

First, we are told that John’s vision takes place on the “Lord’s day,” the term used to describe Sunday, the day for Christian worship and remembrance of the Lord’s Resurrection. Second, the first thing that John sees are seven lamp stands of gold, which any Jew of the first century A.D. would have recognized as belonging to the furnishings in the sanctuary of the Jerusalem Temple. So, this reading tells us that John is in a time for worship (Sunday) and a place of worship (the heavenly Temple). What follows is worship, when John falls on his face in adoration before Jesus revealed as the eternal Son of the Father.

The “beloved disciple,” “the one whom Jesus loved,” doesn’t buddy up to the Lord, slap Him on the back, and begin swapping stories about the old days in Palestine. John falls on his face in worship as Jesus discloses His divine essence. The Jews believed that no one could look on the face of God and live. John, who often looked upon the human face of Jesus, doesn’t excuse himself from this, and falls in holy fear before the divine face of Jesus. And yet Jesus assures John that there is no reason to fear death because He is Life itself. His divinity is awesome and fearsome, but it is the source of life. He is the Alpha and the Omega. Holy fear is called for, but deathly or craven fear is not. We enter into that awesome Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist at the Mass.

John 20:19-31

We are present as a Church on that Easter morning to witness the manifestation of the risen glory of Jesus Christ. We experience that event again in a mysterious though very real way in the liturgy of Easter day. We share the joy and recognition of St. Mary Magdalene and that of the apostles, to whom she acts as an apostle of the Resurrection. But just as we are represented collectively as a Church in the characters of Mary Magdalene and the apostles, we are also absent and remain doubting on that first Easter day in the person of Thomas the doubter.

His Easter was delayed a week. The Second Sunday of Easter could be called Thomas’ Easter. He represents for all time that part of us which holds out against faith, which is relentlessly asking for proof. Thomas is a particularly good model for our age. He demands an empirical, tangible demonstration that Jesus is risen in the flesh. Note too, that Jesus doesn’t refuse him. Sometimes we demonstrate a somewhat Protestant notion that a pure, blind, unsupported faith is all that is acceptable to God. In fact, Jesus does say, “Blest are they who have not seen and have believed,” but He doesn’t deny Thomas’ need to see Him risen. All the apostles saw Jesus risen, and this is offered as proof of His Resurrection in the apostolic proclamation of the Gospel (cf. Acts 2:32; 1 Cor 15:6).

In John’s Gospel, seeing is believing. From the Lord’s first invitation to the disciples, “Come and see,” to Magdalene’s affirmation, “I have seen the Lord!” John seems to emphasize sight as evidence for the identity of the Lord Jesus. Sight and blindness are metaphors for enlightenment and sin, respectively. Yet, there is often a disparagement of the need for signs (cf. 4:48; 6:30; Lk. 11:29). So there is this tension between the evidence that Jesus gives us and our human insistence that He continually reinforce our faith with signs. There is, however, a double truth here that is profoundly consoling. Jesus will go to almost any length to come to us, but how blest we are when we instead walk toward Him in faith. The Church has always respected both our need to be shown the truth and our need for faith which perfects our reason. She respects both because Jesus respected both, as we see in this Gospel text. Happy St. Thomas’ Easter.

Reflection Questions:

(1) Read Acts 19:12. What does that verse tell us about the use of objects that have been in contact with the saints, which Catholics call “relics”?

(2) It’s sometimes said that the Church is the Incarnation of Christ extended through space and time. How do the saints make that particularly clear?

(3) Why do you think God willed that we include the saints in our religious practice? What do you think He is trying to teach us by that?

Application:

Take a particular saint as a friend. Learn everything you can about the life of that famous friend of Christ. Remember to ask for his or her prayers each day.

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