Today’s reading, from the Gospel of John, is proclaimed on the second Sunday of Easter in each of the three Sunday Lectionary cycles. This Gospel is significant and combines two scenes: Jesus’ appearance to his disciples after his Resurrection and Jesus’ dialogue with Thomas, the disciple who doubted.

Part of the mystery of Jesus’ Resurrection is that he appeared to his disciples not as a spirit but in bodily form. Earlier in John’s Gospel, when Mary of Magdala first encounters the risen Jesus, she doesn’t recognize the figure standing before her until He speaks. In Luke’s Gospel, the disciples walking on the road to Emmaus don’t recognize Jesus until he breaks bread with them.

It’s easy to be astonished and think: how could the disciples not recognize their beloved friend, teacher and leader?  However, why are so many of us unable to recognize Jesus in the faces of the poor and the sick?

One of our medical volunteers shared her own moment of recognition, when she saw Jesus in the faces of her patients in the medical ward of a hospital in South Sudan.  She recognized Him in their ravaged and suffering faces each day.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus greets his disciples with the gift of peace and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus also commissions his disciples to continue the work that he has begun. Today, let’s remember that we are the disciples of Jesus.  His directive to us to continue his work is an essential element of the Church.  Jesus gives us the means to accomplish His mission through the eternal gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit binds us together as a community of faith, inspires us to see Him each day, and strengthens us to bear witness to His Resurrection.

In whom will you see Jesus today?

Help those in need in South Sudan today.