Thomas [the Twin], Twins [Optimist/Pessimist], St. Teresa of Calcutta and Pope Francis

 

Thomas’ hopes in Jesus were crushed on Good Friday and he doesn’t want to get his hopes up and his heart broken again! 

 

I want to share this story about Twins: one was a pessimist and one an optimist.  Mom and Dad were concerned so they asked their pediatrician what they should do, and he suggested for their next birthday.   He said buy the most expensive gifts you can afford for the pessimist and a pile of manure for the optimist, place the gifts in separate rooms and see what happens.  They looked in on the pessimist and he was finding fault with everything.  They look in on the optimist, he is throwing manure up in the air, happily saying, “where there is manure, there must be a horse!”

 

 

We are called to be optimists because we have been saved by Jesus Christ!

Thomas the Seeker of God said, “unless I put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand in his side, I will not believe.”  What Thomas needed was to touch his own wounds, his own limitations, his own coldness, and his own unwillingness to offer or seek forgiveness. (Naked, & You Clothed Me: Cycle A, p.112)

 

Thomas allows each one of us to accept the doubts we experience and to TRUST that Jesus whose wounds engulf our wounds, whose wounds heal our wounds – will lead us to a deeper Love for Him and of HIM!

 

 

  

St. Teresa of Calcutta’s, (a.k.a. Mother Teresa) diary was made public in 2002 and it caused a great sensation.  She experienced an absence of Jesus for a long time, it was her cross to bear and it became her gift to live.  Her doubts, like Thomas, were real and painful; she too wanted to touch the wounds of Christ, which she did in the streets of Calcutta.

 

Thomas experienced the risen Lord, and his doubts were ended.  You and I, like Mother Teresa, must live with our doubts when our family and friends die after we pray for divine intervention, when wars, terror and the mayhem continuing in our world, after we pray for peace!

 

 

 

Pope Francis, “Everything we would like others to do for us, let us do for them instead (cf. Mt 7:12).  Do we want to be heard? Let us first listen.  Do we need encouragement? Let us give encouragement.  Do we want someone to care for us? Let us care for those who are alone and abandoned.”

 

St. Joseph, pray for us.

Saint Andre Bessette intercede for us.

May God Be Praised!