“Can’t wait until we can start our meetings again.” was the message in an email I received from one of our Explorations in Spirituality participants. It reminded me of a note I received several months ago which expressed gratitude for the sessions which were making a difference in the sender’s life. These words are pushing me to search for a way to provide something to replace this parish faith offering that our current social distancing situation has halted.

But on the blessings side, the social distancing has caused me to hear the Easter Week readings in a way I haven’t heard them before now. As I listened I heard Jesus encouraging the dumbfounded, lost and frightened post-Crucifixion/Resurrection disciples to come close and to touch Him. How empathically He speaks to them (and to us) as they tried to figure out where their lives were going to go if they believed what they saw and heard.  Each of them, like each of us, must decide what to believe. These Gospel stories make it sound like Jesus is saying to us, “You don’t have to keep yourselves locked inside the world you and others are making for yourselves. Humanity has been doing that since the days of Adam and Eve. Is that why God became man?  Was it so that He could say to them and to us:  “Look and see. Touch me. Be at peace, and do not fear for I am with you all the time. Don’t miss it by waiting until your body dies.”

Sunday John 20: 19-20, 22, 25:

Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. . . . Jesus said to them again, “. . . . As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And . . . he breathed on them. . . . He aid to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side.”

Thursday Luke 24: 36, 38-40:

While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst . . . . Then he said to them, “. . . Why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

+++++

While searching the listing of parishes livestreaming their Masses, I clicked and viewed the homily of a Mass celebrated by one of Fr. Tim’s classmates (priests who were ordained with him) and one of his vacation companions, too.  What struck me is that, like the Exploration attendee reminded me, we need people who spend the bulk of their day every day, watching out for and tending to our spiritual needs, even when those God-centered needs are not on our radar screens.  I am thinking, in particular, of our priests and myself, too. It is not that we are better at this than you.  We are not.  It is that we promised God and the Church that we would do this, help you remember the depth of meaning to your life, help you bring God into your life and bring your life into God’s life. Isn’t arriving at the realization that God means everything to “me”, the only thing that really matters or lasts of all the things we consider to be important?  Everything else will pass away, but seeing, touching, finding peace in God will never pass away.

Let’s stop being like those stunned post-Crucifixion/Resurrection disciples – lost and fearful, locked inside the rooms of our own creation and step into the Light of the Risen Jesus who is saying that we don’t have to keep yourselves locked inside these worlds we’ve created or, wore yet, we’ve let others create. The Risen Jesus is saying to us, “Look and see. Touch me. Be at peace, and do not fear for I am with you.”

Sister Loretta