Seeing Isn’t Always Believing

4/5/2024

Seeing Isn’t Always Believing

Christ is risen! We celebrate the Easter season with great joy at the gift of new life God has given us. However, I would imagine that many of us have not beheld the true face of Jesus as he is in Heaven, nor have we seen the Risen Lord like his disciples did in today’s Gospel. I know I have not (at least not yet). Yet Jesus calls us to believe even if our eyes have not seen him. Not only that, but we are also to have peace in the midst of our suffering knowing that he is there, even if our eyes fail us. When we look upon the Eucharist, our eyes tell us, “It’s just a piece of bread and some wine.”

Yet the eyes of faith and the eyes of belief know that it is Jesus. Not metaphorically, not symbolically, not in any muddied fashion, no. The Eucharist is Jesus. It is his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. The King of All Glory lowers himself, taking the form of bread and wine, that we might be close to him. What a gift and a humbling reality. God, who created all things, chose to become bread and wine for the rest of time for you, for me, for all of us. What can motivate such humility and sacrifice? Only love.

Love is the Lord’s Commandment, to love others as he loves us. The 10 Commandments are certainly a guide for us to love. Jesus himself affirmed them. In our second reading, St. John affirms them as well, saying that we love God when we obey his commandments. Also, the Holy Spirit guards not only us who are washed in Baptism and sealed in Confirmation, but also guards God’s Word in the Gospels and the Bible. The commandments are the blueprint for love and God is the Divine Architect who created the wonderful world we live in. We live in this great universe that God has made. We are called to love God and love neighbor. We are called to be of one mind and heart in our love and life, that guarded by the Holy Spirit we may know the truth and believe, even though we might not see.