Friends, today’s Gospel tells of Thomas’ doubting the Resurrection. Indeed, Catholicism has a rich tradition of questioning, seeking understanding. Aquinas, another great St. Thomas, spent much of his life asking and answering hard questions about the faith. 

Do you remember Hamlet’s great line, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio”? If we stubbornly said—even in the area of science—that we will accept only what we can clearly see and touch and control, we wouldn’t know much about reality. 

There is, in most areas of life, a play between knowing and believing. It is not unique to the religious sphere of life. Blaise Pascal summed it up: “The heart has its reasons that reason knows not.”

It is not that we who have not seen and have believed are settling for a poor substitute for vision. No, we are being described as blessed, more blessed than Thomas. God is doing all sorts of things that we cannot see, measure, control, fully understand. But it is an informed faith that allows one to fall in love with such a God.