Doubting Thomas
April 7, 2024
The Incredulity of St. Thomas, Caravaggio
[Reposted]
FROM Dom Prosper Guéranger’s “Quasimodo Sunday,” The Liturgical Year:
“To return to our Apostle — Thomas had heard Magdalene, and he despised her testimony; he had heard Peter, and he objected to his authority; he had heard the rest of his fellow-Apostles and the two disciples of Emmaus, and no, he would not give up his own opinion. How many there are among us, who are like him in this! We never think of doubting what is told us by a truthful and disinterested witness, unless the subject touch upon the supernatural; and then, we have a hundred difficulties. It is one of the sad consequences left in us by original sin. Like Thomas, we would see the thing ourselves: that alone is enough to keep us from the fullness of the truth. We comfort ourselves with the reflection that, after all, we are Disciples of Christ; as did Thomas, who kept in union with his brother-Apostles, only he shared not their happiness. He saw their happiness, but he considered it to be a weakness of mind, and was glad that he was free from it!
“How like this is to our modern rationalistic Catholic! He believes, but it is because his reason almost forces him to believe; he believes with his mind, rather than from his heart. His faith is a scientific deduction, and not a generous longing after God and supernatural truth. Hence, how cold and powerless is this faith! How cramped and ashamed! How afraid of believing too much! Unlike the generous unstinted faith of the saints, it is satisfied with fragments of truth, with what the Scripture terms diminished truths. (Psalm 11:2) It seems ashamed of itself. It speaks in a whisper, lest it should be criticised; and when it does venture to make itself heard, it adopts a phraseology, which may take off the sound of the divine. As to those miracles which it wishes had never taken place, and which it would have advised God not to work, they are a forbidden subject. The very mention of a miracle, particularly if it have happened in our own times, puts it into a state of nervousness. The lives of the saints, their heroic virtues, their sublime sacrifices — it has a repugnance to the whole thing! It talks gravely about those who are not of the true religion being unjustly dealt with by the Church in Catholic countries: it asserts that the same liberty ought to be granted to error as to truth: it has very serious doubts whether the world has been a great loser by the secularization of society.”
— Comments —
Joseph M. writes:
Thank you for another profound article. Today’s post is a very accurate picture of today’s “Catholic’s”. I think also of St Thomas as he wanted to see BVM one more time and as he entered the sepulcher and stated…”of course, I should have known.”
How many Catholic’s today in the various sects, chapels, etc. should say the same?
May the Sorrowful and Immaculate of Mary help us.
