Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
Father Don Wolf, a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, offers a Catholic perspective on the issues confronting each person today.
Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
January 26, 2025 | "Peace be with you - even Thomas"
The episode emphasizes the journey of encountering Christ through the Eucharist amidst doubt and uncertainty. Father Wolf explores how the real presence of Christ affects believers today, encouraging them to embrace community and shared faith experiences.
• Discussion on the urgency of Eucharistic revival
• Exploring the apostles' doubt and their encounter with Christ
• The significance of Jesus' greeting of peace
• Understanding Christ's wounds as a connection to faith
• Reflecting on Thomas’s criteria for true belief
• The Church as the living body of Christ today
• Encouragement for active participation in faith
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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.
This is Living Catholic with Father Don Wolfe. This show deals with living the Catholic faith in our time, discovering God's presence in our lives and finding hope in His Word. And now your host, father Don Wolfe.
Speaker 2:Welcome Oklahoma to Living Catholic. I'm Father Don Wolfe, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and rector of the Shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother in Oklahoma City. The American bishops have wanted to renew in us a greater appreciation of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Startled by polling indicating a confusion of belief about the Catholic doctrine of Eucharistic presence, they initiated their program several years ago and are carrying through with their agenda. It's a major focus for them all over the United States. Their greatest concern at this time is the fear that the whole effort simply devolves into a matter of yes or no. Reviving the deepened encounter with Christ in the sacrament of the altar means growing ever more intimately connected to the life and ministry of Christ. Rather than simply answering a question the right way or being on the right side of the divide between those who believe correctly and those who are mistaken in their belief, the one who encounters the real presence of Christ offered in the Eucharist is one whose mind is enlightened, whose hands are enabled and whose heart is enlivened. That's the goal of the revival. We've several reminders of the encounter with Christ from the scriptures that offer us guidelines to understand and to appreciate more fully what our journey with Christ looks like. Last week we looked at the encounter with the apostles and the great commission they received from the last appearance of Jesus with them. In that story, although they had seen the empty tomb and had received a message of his resurrection from an angel, and they had seen Jesus in person as he appeared to them, some of them still doubted it was he really? They who could see and talk to him, still wondered if their experience added up to the real presence of the resurrected Christ that they had known before.
Speaker 2:Doubt does not destroy the promise of presence. It is in receiving the impulse to go forth to preach and teach and make disciples that overcomes the disability of doubt. We ought to remember that there are other stories that impress upon us the power of the presence of Christ in our midst and act as guides for us as we strive to understand what an encounter with him can be. And we should remember the experience of the church is just that the experience of the community of believers of which we are a part. There's a good deal of distance between our lives and the lives of the apostolic church, certainly, but the sacraments we celebrate help to cross the barrier between the years that have passed since these events and the encounter with Christ. Today, when we gather at the altar and enact the gift that Jesus gave us in the Eucharist, we bridge the canyon of years separating us from him so that he becomes present to us. That's one of the promises made to us. It's why we celebrate the Eucharist and believe in the real presence. We re-encounter the presence of Jesus with us, not just in the pages of a book or in the memory of the community, but alive to us in our lives. So when we read of what takes place with the apostles, we shouldn't simply think about those moments all those centuries ago. We should appreciate them as the life of the church to which we belong, whose life and energy fill us today.
Speaker 2:The impactful story from John's Gospel chapter 20, gives us an insight into what happens when the community of believers gathers together as they celebrate the Lord's resurrection. This story opens on the day of the resurrection, with all the commotion that had taken place and the concern raised in the minds of everyone at the discovery of the empty tomb. The apostles were troubled. Reports have come to them that Jesus has risen from the dead and has appeared to some of their group. It was also related that several of them, seeing the tomb and the clues that seem to have been left behind, they have come to believe that there's more to the story than the simple fact that Jesus' body is no longer lying interred there. Something monumental has happened, although exactly what it is and what it means has not yet revealed itself to them.
Speaker 2:So the community gathered together, presumably to pray and to reaffirm their unity as a community of believers In the intensity of the moment. They're not simply a study group that's decided to get together and to go over their evidence. Nor are they getting together simply to affirm old times and to celebrate their reunion in Jerusalem. They're bound together first of all by their association with Jesus. Their lives have been changed by what they've seen and heard. Jesus has had an impact on them. Secondly, the news coming from the garden tomb has been upsetting. When a man is buried and laid to rest, it's most unsettling to know that he has not remained. So what this might mean for them has major implications about what they know and about what they've seen. This isn't just one more bit of information about a close friend. It's a moment when they're striving to make sense out of their lives. Ignoring that information is impossible, but finally they're united by their fear of what they've all seen in the last days.
Speaker 2:The crowd that condemned Jesus was frightening in its power and its voice. While it's not possible to sustain peak fear and have the murderous spirit rush through a crowd for days on end, it is possible to rekindle the energy that had them calling for crucifixion easily. They who were identified with him. They knew the focus of the crowd could easily be fixed on them and they were afraid. Not just that, they had good reason to be afraid. The story begins with the assurance that the door where they were gathered was locked for fear of those who might barge in and duplicate the progress and the energy of the previous night. The dominant emotion was of confusion, of questioning and fear, and we should pause and consider the state of the church at this moment. It included the followers of Jesus, including his friends and his mother. They did not assure themselves with certainties and prophecies, that is, they didn't gather with serene hearts and quieted minds. None of them had a script of what was happening and certainly they did not know what was going to happen.
Speaker 2:If we look at the life of the church in our day, we often become upset because the times are difficult and we are uncertain at what might happen to us. The questions we have are not idle. We have not faced the challenges and the threats confronting us now in previous days. These are new times for us and we don't know what to do. If we did know, it would be easier. But we don't know, and thus we're left to confusion and uncertainty. But we should know that we would be easier. But we don't know, and thus we're left to confusion and uncertainty. But we should know that we've been in this situation before. In fact, we're always in this situation, teetering on the brink of uncertainty and unaware of exactly how it is we're going to respond.
Speaker 2:According to this story in John, chapter 20, as they gathered, jesus suddenly was among them, although the doors were locked. We might also understand that. No doubt they gathered to do what Jesus had commanded them to do at the Last Supper, when they had been gathered, that is, they gathered and celebrated the Eucharistic mystery that they were entrusted at that time. In their moment together, jesus, very quickly, was among them. He was present there. It was actual and real for them. They were left to be amazed and overwhelmed. He who had been killed and buried was among them. His first greeting was the common one peace, he said. It's the greeting still offered by Jews today. Indeed, it is the common greeting among the many cultures and languages of the Middle East. He greeted them as any person would greet another, and that, apparently, was unnerving. This is because real presence is terrifying, at least it was to them.
Speaker 2:What could be more terrifying than the experience of one who is dead and has come back from the dead? We're schooled to understand Jesus' resurrection and the great hope it brings, as it breaks the boundaries of life and death. And as part of our schooling, the resurrected Christ is a great heavenly moment for those who encounter it. Think of the end of the movie the Passion of the Christ. As the light enters the tomb on Easter morning, as the music reaches its crescendo and the lights pour in, jesus sits up and then stands up and walks toward the light. It's magnificent. But think of encountering the one who has died, or rather who has been killed. What would your reaction be? And it would be more terrifying to know that it was a real body, the true resurrected body of Christ standing in front of you, and not a vaporous phantasm whose wispy tendrils were dancing on the air currents. They had a right to be anxious. They needed to hear a greeting that would sound welcoming and common in their ears.
Speaker 2:Besides the startled reaction, they also had a lot of quick thinking to do. According to the accounts, they had all abandoned Jesus in the garden. After spending the final evening with him and promising their loyalty and their fidelity, they had left him when the arrest took place. It wasn't clear what else they might have done. Being arrested with him would not have lessened his burden or subtracted from his pain in any way. Staying out of the way of the guard was prudent and right, except it left Jesus to face the consequences of arrest alone. They didn't betray him by running away, but they also didn't relieve him of the pains afflicting him at the moment.
Speaker 2:He then shows them his hands and his side. His validation to them, in all of its grossness, is his wounds. They all know it. Is he, without a doubt, their friend and Lord? By way of the wounds he's willing to expose to them, it becomes clear they were not afraid of the grossness of a body come back from the dead. They were afraid that it might be a body possessed by the malevolence of the spirit of vengeance and retribution. The body of Christ was ambivalent until they knew it was the body of the Christ of forgiveness, of forbearance and of new life. They knew it was the body of the Christ of forgiveness, of forbearance and of new life. Once they saw that it was the Jesus of their acquaintance, the Christ of God's love, they were overjoyed. He said peace to you again. And this time they heard him and they knew it was he.
Speaker 2:When we encounter the body of Christ among us, it's not a mere fact, as if we found the car keys or a lost check or had run across our buddy from high school. The body of Christ did the encounter with the person of Jesus and all Jesus offered and proposed during his ministry, because this is the Christ we are invited to come to know. I wonder if a stranger had been present with the apostles in the upper room, would they have known the one who suddenly was there among them? Or would this stranger simply note that everyone there had suddenly become animated for some reason or other? And even if it wasn't possible for this stranger in the crowd to sit and interview these apostles, would he have known the joy they knew among each other. I wonder if we might ask the same questions about ourselves on Sunday morning as we walk back from the middle aisle where we've received communion. If we are aware of the presence of Jesus, is anyone else?
Speaker 2:Jesus rounds out his time with them by giving them a frightening mission. He delivers his message of their future. For all who have ears to hear, the words at that moment sound ominous. Jesus said as the Father sent me, so I send you. Now he's just shown them the price of being sent, having opened his hands and pointed to his side, and then he tells them that they are to go into the world to live in the same way as he, to experience what he has experienced. It's a double-edged message. These apostles will participate in the victory over sin and death, just as Jesus did, but they will also be wounded as Jesus was. Or, in the words of Jesus Christ Superstar, to conquer death, you only have to die.
Speaker 2:Having heard these words, I wonder if they didn't reconsider the effect of having recognized him. In our day and time, when our people profess that they don't know the Eucharist to be the body and the blood of Jesus, I also wonder if they deny its reality because of the price they'd have to pay if they did profess it. Maybe it just costs too much to be real. I have known people who refuse to pray to God for their needs, because if God granted what they needed, then God would be more real in their lives than he is, and then they would be changed by that reality, and they don't want that. It's something like the physicist who published an article describing his opinion about the creation of the universe. After great consideration, he opined that the structure of the universe and all of its fine-tuning and special relationships could only exist because it was made by God. Now he knew how explosive this opinion would be, not just because of the physics involved, but because of the price of being left with believing in the reality of God. So he entitled his article God Did Create the Universe that we Can Still Sleep With Whomever we Want.
Speaker 2:He knew the source of their resistance and was sanguine about unbelief. Sometimes saying no isn't about unbelief as an inescapable of ascending to the truth, but it is because to say yes to the truth costs too much. The apostles did say yes, as the body of Christ was among them. I wonder if the reluctance in our day and time has something to do with the cost of the yes we might give. But the heart of the story comes when they confront Thomas about what they've seen and experienced. He hears of what happened to them but he is unconvinced. He has forever been known as Doubting Thomas because he was unwilling to credit their account of Jesus' come among them and then lays out his requirement for coming to believe. Interestingly, his requirement is that he can touch the wounds of Christ with his own hands.
Speaker 2:Thomas has laid out the criteria for true belief in the real presence, at least according to his imagination. He wants to know it is the real, true suffering Jesus. In our catechesis, in our age we have seldom spent much time describing the suffering Christ. We don't ignore it exactly. We are likely to describe it as the poet John Shea put it in one of his poems. He said that brief unpleasantness on Friday afternoon.
Speaker 2:Other societies in which the real presence is fiercely taught and held onto with passion. The crucifixion is described in graphic detail while we mostly downplay it, and we mostly downplay the sufferings in our lives. It's rare to hear anyone link the inevitable sufferings we will experience in life with the sufferings of Jesus on the cross. American Christianity, including American Catholicism is allergic to the mention of suffering as a characteristic of life, and thus we regard it as an interruption, a ghastly misunderstanding of God's presence in our lives. If we want to reclaim the real presence of Christ in our lives, perhaps we should be as demanding as Thomas, or at least reprise his criteria as we go about the Eucharistic revival, when we touch the wounds of Christ, and only then will we believe. We might spend more time finding those wounds and touching them and thus grow in our conviction of what they mean. The next week, on the first day of the week, that is, on Sunday, as they are gathered in the upper room and Jesus again appears among them, thomas is with them that time and Jesus comes to him Fearlessly. Jesus insists that Thomas go ahead and touch the wounds he has insisted are the markers of his true presence. And Jesus insists Thomas come to believe in him by being forthright and actual in what he wants. There's no record of Thomas actually going through with it. Seeing Jesus as he sees him is enough, but Jesus meets him in his disbelief Touch my wounds. This is the answer to the wandering heart.
Speaker 2:In the medieval church, the real presence of Christ was often the phrase used to describe the church itself Everywhere the church was was the presence of Christ. To describe the church itself Everywhere the church was was the presence of Christ. It was real and certain, not simply an idea or a claim or a spiritual asset, but the actual people and land and buildings and organization that was the church. While it did have a spiritual and intellectual aspect and it did fill the minds and preoccupations of the people, it was as concrete as masonry, as sensory as a ringing bell and as sensible as a singing voice. In every way that someone or something can be present, the church is present.
Speaker 2:Want to know where the presence of Christ is. It's in the church. The church is the real presence of Christ. The Eucharist, in this denomination or this understanding in the Middle Ages, is the mystical presence of Christ. Jesus is truly there, but the presence is mediated by the mystery of the sacrament. In the time of the Reformation, it became more and more important to emphasize that Jesus was truly there in the celebration of the Eucharist, since this presence was most often denied by the Reformers. Interestingly, the Church as an actual, concrete, touchable presence of Christ was also denied. So at the time, the title Real Presence migrated to refer to the sacramental presence, but we should remember the original insight. We know the presence of Christ by way of the church. We also know the wounds of Christ by way of the church as well.
Speaker 2:Want to know where Christ suffers. Just look at the church. Among the people of the church, among those whom we know, among the interstices of our own lives, suffering is real and undeniable. It is there where Christ is present to us. As Jesus suffered on the cross and was marked by his wounds, so the church suffers and is marked by its wounds. If we want to embolden belief in the real presence of Christ, we should be willing to touch the wounds of Christ. There we'll find Christ present and risen.
Speaker 2:We in the American church tend to think of this presence in abstract ways, as a kind of picture of what it means to connect the wounds of Jesus on the cross with the suffering we see every day. For us it's also a kind of word game, an exercise in expanding our minds to include the silent difficulties that happen around us. But the presence of Christ is much more than that. Just spend time with those who are suffering. They're the ones who are most likely to tell you of the presence of Jesus in their lives. It is by way of the testimony of those who suffer that we know Jesus is here among us, suffering with those whose lives bear the marks of pain and anguish. Suffering is not abstract or imaginative. It is real. And if we want to know if Christ is real and is really among us, we should spend some time touching the wounds of those we know. We'll find it to be true. Thomas did. The novelist Walker Persett used a figure in several of his novels to highlight our faulty imagination when it comes to our image of the world. He insisted that anyone who's convinced that they don't need to take account of pain in their lives only has to suffer from real nausea for five minutes, he said, to know that the power of flesh is real in us. When Jesus insisted that Thomas reach out and touch his wounds, he was connecting the reality of the realist part of life with the promise that he is truly present to us as we gather and complete his promises at the Eucharist. It really is he. Touch and see, suffer and see. That's Jesus' promise. And one more thing we shouldn't ignore Thomas did not believe the apostles' testimony.
Speaker 2:He was skeptical even though he had been present at the Last Supper and had heard Jesus' words himself in person. He had all of the catechesis anyone anywhere could receive. There was nothing else that could have been given to him to make him more convinced or at least more informed. And yet, when these men, whom he had known for years, told him what they had seen and touched and what led them to believe, he doubted. Thomas is the perfect Catholic of our era, untouched by what he has been taught, unbelieving in what he has received and unconvinced about what others have testified. If only he had promised that he was too busy to get up and go to the upper room because he was tired from work, would he have made the ideal example of the ones we all know.
Speaker 2:But we have to notice. The answer to his skeptical doubt was to show up. He was there when the presence of Christ moved his heart and opened his eyes. Jesus spoke to him because he was there. It's not a sublime evangelical strategy, but it is a biblical example. If we want unbelievers to come to believe and doubters to allay their qualms, then show up.
Speaker 2:Go to Mass until you believe. It's something our ancestors in the faith understood both as a remedy and as a prescription. Go to the upper room, you'll meet him there. That's what the Gospels insist. It is the way to come to see and to know. We're more likely to trust intricacy and complication. All of us fall in love with the profound and the hidden, but the solution may be as simple as my grandmother's harping words Go to Mass, you'll find what you need there. Remember, that's what Thomas did Back in just a moment. Welcome back to our final segment Faith in Verse.
Speaker 2:We have a poem today called To Remember. It's no small thing to remember. It's a work of each of us. We casually drop that we were there yesterday without drama or fuss, or that we took the chance to stop and talk with the one next door. A quick encounter, a brief word, passing, it's what time is for. But to recall the moment, to place it in the map of yesterday, is a monumental work.
Speaker 2:Recalling what we do and say, just find someone for whom the moment now is a revelation, whose memory, jumbled and hard, defies penetration. For them, there is nothing there of what we imagined of yesterday, but only a rattle of impressions, beads to shake and play and even more puzzling. As a people, we struggle to remember clearly just what has happened among us altogether and really we are liable to forget the days in which we were in trial and strain or the ease in which the years went by when worry was feigned. Our first duty, as children of Adam formed in the garden, is to recall all we know so that in clear memory we hearken to what truly has been our pathway through the trackless sea and know where we've been and know our story in times-ly, that's to remember. Presence of Christ is promised to us always as we celebrate the Eucharist and experience the presence of Christ among us in the community. Our invitation is to continue the exploration of what it means to be living Catholic. I hope we can do that together in the weeks to come.
Speaker 1:Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio. To learn more, visit okcrorg.