Getting Ready to Pray                     

We pray within Easter renewal and life. We are invited to pray for the awareness of all the gifts God has given this world through its being created and blest by the redemptive love of Jesus.

We pray for the freedom to hold our gifts in common with our sisters and brothers. We hold them gently and generously as having been given and given to be shared. We pray to be more receptive to the movements of the Holy Spirit as we attempt to stay out of any of our favorite tombs.

Some Thoughts 

The more we are aware of who we are and accept who we are and who we are not, the less “envy” directs our attitudes and choices. In our First Reading, the early believers were moved through their being grateful, to distribute all their possessions and share them with the needy. They were inspired by the Holy Spirit and their belief in the Resurrection of Jesus to a freer way of looking at life on this earth.

Adam and Eve had to dress themselves to avoid the shame of their being naked. They had to accumulate and preserve their personal “being” by which they and others would identify them. It seems that the early Christian Community was in a divesting spirit, because they were growing in their identities, personal and communal. God had given them the gift of the Holy Spirit to affirm them as beloved human beings. The early apostles held on to nothing except their belief in Jesus and the “power of His Resurrection.”

The Gospel we hear is a continuation of the Adam and Eve story. God has come looking for them, but they were ashamed of who they knew themselves to be. They were in hiding, as shame wants to do. They had individually and collectively lost their original names. Humanity who would follow their wandering, would continue the search for their name.

Jesus enters a similar group of human beings, lost and hiding for fear. The “lost-and-Found department is now open for business. Jesus is the Finder and meets them in a condition in which they all would wish were different.

Instead of accusation, there is “Peace be with you.” The disciples “rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” They were divested of their fear, shame, and old names. They were now “apostles” or “those sent.” In a real sense, that is the name of “the Christ,” and he passes that name and personal subtitle on to his early church.

Thomas is a perfect picture of “envy.” He, as did Adam and Eve, wants to eat of the apple of certainty. Jesus affirms Thomas’ need to know, but blesses all of us who want to eat of that apple. He wants us to trust the experiences of others and the grace to live beyond the mountains of fear and doubt.

This very morning I participated in a fundrsaiser, a run of five kilometers. It was a rather cool morning, but students and faculty from the Creighton Dental School lined up for the “fun” run. I run that distance four times a week, no problem. So off we went and according to our watches, the turn-around should be in sight. After ten more minutes we began to wonder if we were getting slower than we thought.

Thirty-four minutes into the run, which was turning out not to be “fun,” we arrived at the five K watering hole. The young dental student got her miles and kilometers mixed up, ah yes, these Americans!

Not only did we have five more K’s to run, but we had a demand for explanation. She said cheerfully that we got twice as much for our ten dollars. We had trusted what we were told and our energy to complete our morning’s mission.

It just about completed us.

Trusting what we are told without seeing signs is most difficult for us “envious” pilgrims. We kept watching for the faster runners to be passing by us going back to the beginning. We wanted certainty so that we would be comfortable that we would make it. We felt we had a right to know!

  “Envy” is a human burden. It can confine us to prisons of fearful comparison. It can result in such inferiority that any attempt at anything is terrifyingly tense. It isolates us and mistakenly names us “loser.” Jesus arose to raise us from the gravitational pull of “envy” to the upright walking, (or running): the journey of believing.

And his commandments are not burdensome,
for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world.
1 John, 5