27 April 2025 - 2nd Sunday of Easter ‘C
Acts 5:12-16; Rev 1:9...19; Jn 20:19-31
Homily
Before becoming an organized religion, with its rites of celebration, its rules and its administrative structures, the Church founded by Christ was first of all what it is in its deepest essence, a vast movement of faith. The fresh accounts that the first Christians have left us of their early experience are the founding texts of this spiritual movement. Each of the authors of the New Testament recounts this experience with his or her own sensitivity and based on personal experience. In today's Gospel, John, the beloved disciple, recounts Jesus' meeting with his disciples on the evening of the first day of the first week of the new creation and on the evening of the eighth day. Then, many years later, John, exiled to Patmos for having followed his master to the end, writes to the seven Churches of Asia Minor at a time when this spiritual movement born on Easter morning has already become a communion between many local Churches.
Today's first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, describes for us all the enthusiasm of the first days of this movement in Jerusalem: enthusiasm both of the Christians themselves and of those who observe them, just as Jesus had aroused great enthusiasm among the crowds in the first days of his preaching - the same crowds that soon abandoned him and were soon to shout ‘crucify him’ before Pilate.
Today's account of the early Christian community is full of lessons about what a genuine community should be. Jesus and his disciples showed a profound respect for the progress of individuals, allowing them to develop at their own pace and with their own internal requirements.
In the days following Jesus' execution, the disciples were afraid, and rightly so, for those who had put Jesus to death might well do the same to them if they realized that they were capable of keeping alive the memory of their master. The disciples don't hide their fear; they share it. But one of them, Thomas, was different. The day Jesus set out for Bethany to bring his friend Lazarus back to life, when the leaders of the people already wanted to put him to death, Thomas said to the others: ‘Let us also die with him’. When John tells us that the name Thomas means ‘twin’, he certainly doesn't want to give us a lesson in etymology - that's not John's style. He wants to tell us something about Thomas.
He probably wants to tell us how similar he is to Jesus. Thomas is courageous - or reckless, which is not so different, because courage usually involves a great deal of recklessness. The fact remains that while the other disciples shut themselves away out of fear, Thomas went into town. Jesus came while he was away. When he returned, Thomas refused to believe the story the other disciples had told him. He is not gullible; he has his demands. He will believe when he can put his hand in Jesus' wounds. This does not mean that he is rejected by the other disciples. He just has different requirements. And the others don't seem to have a problem with that. Neither did Jesus, who, eight days later, invited him to put his hand in his wounds. And this attitude of Jesus provoked Thomas to make the beautiful confession of faith: ‘My Lord and my God!
The Acts of the Apostles, many of whose chapters we will be reading over the next few weeks, shows us an early Church whose face was rapidly taking shape and changing over the course of the first generation, while respecting its differences. All the believers stood together, with one heart, under Solomon's colonnade; but already many signs were being realized among the people by the hand of the Apostles. Peter had a role of his own. Soon deacons were instituted to serve the tables, but almost immediately they became essentially preachers of the Word. And then there was Paul, so different and so disturbing for the others! But what would the Church have been without Paul?
Easter is a privileged time when the whole Church, every local community, every group within the Church, must rediscover the freshness of the primordial Christian movement, respectful of the charisms of each person and the great diversity of particular graces. Didn't Genesis describe God playing with clay on the morning of creation to shape the first human being? And how can we fail to recall once again the beautiful image in Christian de Chergé's Testament of a God ‘whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and re-establish likeness, by playing with differences’?
Armand Veilleux