Possible Preaching Themes
Possible Scientific Resources
  • Cultivating mercy: in 2000 Pope John Paul II proclaimed this “Divine Mercy Sunday,” themes reflected in the readings (e.g., Acts many cures of the sick; gospel of merciful forgiveness that Jesus’ death and resurrection enacted)
  • The power of touch: Thomas’ instinct to want to see for himself, to touch the wounds of Jesus, is a natural human instinct and call to mission for touching the wounds of the world.

Homily Outline Combining Resources

Homily outline: Thomas the Toucher

  • Rehabilitating Thomas
    • Thomas is famously labeled “the doubter,” a limiting and demeaning classification that overlooks important modeling for faith
    • Earlier in Gospel when Jesus decides to go into dangerous Bethany, Thomas the brave who insists the disciples go along even if it means dying with Jesus (11:16)
    • When Jesus is giving his last supper discourse, Thomas the irrepressible confesses honestly that he does not know where Jesus is going (14:5)
    • Today’s gospel reveals Thomas the unscamable who wants to witness the risen Christ himself
    • Barbara Brown Taylor exploits this aspect of Thomas in her homily on this passage (Home by Another Way 1999, p. 114):
    • “Thomas is a stand-n for all of us who want to see something for ourselves before we decided whether or not it is true”
    • Furthermore, he does so through one of the most intimate and forms of human communication: touch
  • The vital power of touch
  • The tactile Savior, our tactile worship
    • Jesus was fully human; like every other human being, his skin was the largest organ in his body
    • He deployed the sense of touch often and in striking ways,
    • Multiple times he touched the blind in healing them (e.g., Mark 8:22-26)
    • He touched the bier of the widow’s son before he raised her [Luke 7:14)
    • He touched the leper to heal him (Matt 8:3)
    • He touched the servant of the high priest and healed his severed ear (Luke 22:51)
    • He touched his disciples when they were crouched in fear after the transfiguration (Matt 17:7)
    • As he was also touched in the hope of grace and healing (e.g., Mark 3:10)
    • In the same way our fully embodied worship is filled with acts of touch
    • Laying hands on the elect for initiation and ordination
    • Chrismating babies and confirmandi
    • Signing baptized with ashes
    • Embracing each other in the sign of peace
  • Gospel implications
    • Psychologist Dacher Keltner notes, we live in a touch deprived world
    • We would rather stand apart, maybe look out of curiosity, but are cautious of getting to close, with hand sanitizer on the ready
    • Thomas challenges any stand-offish form of Christian discipleship
    • The world is wounded as was the Christ
    • His willingness to touch the wounds, to get up close and personal with pain, even crucifixion, prompts us to do the same
    • Our families, our neighbors, the stranger, the marginalized are skin-hungry for the compassionate Christ
    • As we were touched by hand and water and chrism in baptism, so we are missioned to reach out to others.
 
Tags: Fr Samuel Hakeem OP

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Preaching with Sciences

Edward Foley, Capuchin
Duns Scotus Professor Emeritus of Spirituality
Professor of Liturgy and Music (retired)
Catholic Theological Union
Vice-Postulator, Cause of Blessed Solanus