Divine Mercy Sunday – Cycle C

Reflecting on John 20:19-31

Three years ago, I found a new favorite author and a new book, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again by Rachel Held Evans. In some ways it made me sad, because this formerly evangelical young woman was just now discovering Catholic approaches to reading scripture.

It’s understandable that it took  her awhile, growing up as she did in Dayton, Tennessee, made famous by the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. The trial, which drew famous prosecutor William Jennings Bryan, and defense attorney Clarence Darrow, publicized the tension between science (evolution) and the fundamentalist reading of the book of Genesis which was so popular in the south.

Rachel was courageous in her own growth as a Christian. As she famously said in Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions: “Doubt…requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it.”

What astounding joy Thomas must have felt when the Divine Mercy greeted him that night. I don’t think he ever doubted God. He doubted what he believed about God, that there could be no intersection between his lived experience—he had, after all, seen his Lord, crucified and buried that terrible Friday—and his faith. Touch my wounds, said Jesus.

One week after I discovered her, Rachel died of the flu at age 38. She left an infant, a toddler, and a devastated husband. Where is God in the tragedy of her death? Touch my wounds, says Jesus. I am here.

Jesus, I trust in you.

How does your faith inform your experiences every day?

Kathy McGovern ©2022

Easter - Cycle C