Bridge Work

I naively preached about Thomas the first time I celebrated Eucharist. I told my family, friends, and parishioners the day after ordination that Thomas modeled faith by reaching beyond his fear to touch the wounded Christ. On that day my instincts were correct but I lacked the life experience to back up that authentic message. Twenty-five years later, I look back now on the wisdom of that homily and the path Thomas invited me to walk. My naiveté has melted away and I have learned to trust the action and guidance of Thomas. Clearly now I see how he steered me through the turbulence of my own life and the chaotic adventures of these years of ministry.

As I look back, I see that Thomas directed my childish ways beginning with my first Mass. Thomas led me first to a young man who taught me that I do not have all the answers. Dennis, a developmentally disabled man my own age, experienced his first communion at my first Mass because other catechists and priests thought he did not understand Jesus. However, becoming acquainted with his life and disability, Dennis taught me more about how to desire God than anything I learned in all my years in seminary formation. Thomas led me to first appreciate that I discover faith through relationships with real people. Thomas later touched my mouth and taught me to speak out when people need help. Thomas showed me that to touch people suffering from AIDS was to touch the Body of Christ. Michael, the first person I met who was dying of AIDS, stopped in the threshold of my office and asked, “Would you at least listen to me?” He told me that he tried to speak with three other priests, but no one would listen. On the spot I knew this was a new threshold for my life as well. I listened and promised him I would speak out when fear about the disease overwhelmed others.

Today, Thomas has led me to the place where I feel most at home in the church. He places my concern among the many people struggling with heroin addiction and alcohol abuse, fearful people suffering mental illness, and poor people who come to our doors every day asking for the basics of life. He puts his hand on my shoulder and teaches me through the middle-class father estranged from his homeless son that relationships are all that matter. He introduces me to a woman camped at our front doors, drenched with Portland rain and overwhelming fear, and shows me that even sharing a cup of coffee helps dissolve the worry.

Thomas teaches all of us in this Easter season to build our communities on reaching out from our collective fear. If your community lacks the joy of the Easter celebrations, then perhaps it is because no risks have been taken to understand the needs of real people. The only way through the locked doors of fear to the promise of Easter life is to touch the Mystical Body with all the courage and enthusiasm a community can muster. “Do not be afraid” is Jesus’s great commission for all of us. It is not a pious, liturgical refrain but a command to act on life’s worry. Take new steps this Easter season to step out of the climate of pleasing people and ignoring the issues of our time. Move further out into the depths of the real situations in your suffering community. All communities bear their wounds in times of war, violence, and apathy. Every community knows the isolation and insecurity of the elderly or of parents with an autistic child. Allow Thomas to guide your community to new compassion and honesty. This is the Easter for new life to happen in your worshiping community, where the wounds of the cross will actually mean something for ordinary people.

Thomas remains one of my beloved mentors in the Scriptures. I admire his courage to speak his unbelief. In my jubilee year, I now understand with great clarity and humility the strength of his conviction to touch the wounded body of the mystical Christ. This action continues to change my life and the worship of every Christian community. I stand in great gratitude for Thomas’s example and the many people I have met through these years of priesthood. When I face new obstacles among strangers, in my own life and within the church, I will turn to Thomas, my friend and Easter guide. ML

Rev. Ronald Patrick Raab, CSC, serves as an associate pastor at the Downtown Chapel of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Portland, Ore. He hosts the radio program On the Margins, a weekly Gospel reflection that can be heard online at KBVM.com. His email address is raab@downtownchapel.org

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