WHITE HOUSE JESUIT RETREAT

St. Louis, MO 63129

1-800-643-1003

Jesuit retreat center high on the bluffs of the Mississippi River in St. Louis, MO.  Since 1922, thousands of people from around the world make annual three-day silent, guided retreats here to relax, reconnect with God and strengthen their spirituality.  A true gem in the Midwest!  Call 314-416-6400 or 1-800-643-1003.  Email reservations@whretreat.org  7400 Christopher Rd.  St. Louis, MO 63129

Both men's and women's retreats are offered as well as recovery retreats.

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Weekend Reflections for 4/17/20

April 15, 2020  /  Joe Parisi

Second Sunday of Easter

How is it that a person becomes a "person of faith?" How is it that a family or community or culture or nation is "faith-filled" and others are not? Why is it that even within the same family some individuals, raised as children in seemingly the same manner and with the same values, in their adulthood "live the faith" and others do not?

One of the most difficult things for people today to embrace is the reality of the miraculous. We are prone to operate, more than we sometimes acknowledge, under the assumption that God cannot have an active role in a world where growing human knowledge - and expanding technology - seem to promise ultimate human control.

The first Christians who experienced and professed Jesus' Resurrection, and who were observers and even performers of miracles, understood these events as signs of God's salvation. God chose to act through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; in that process, the "normal" limits of human life were broken on behalf of humanity.

In today's Gospel, Thomas wants empirical proof if he is to believe the testimony of the other disciples that Jesus has risen. And yet, I suggest that it was not Thomas' commitment to scientific thinking that keeps him from believing that Jesus has been raised from the dead. It is a more basic problem. It is his unwillingness, perhaps his inability, to believe that God would act in such a way to bring about salvation. Jesus appeared to him, passing through locked doors. In doing so, Jesus symbolically broke through the limits that Thomas had placed on God's saving actions.

In giving us the story of "doubting Thomas," John gives a new twist to the story of Jesus' reality as the Resurrected One. Taking up a concern of the later Christian community, John asks: How can a person believe in the Risen One without having received an appearance? The answer he gives is clear: Seeing Jesus is no guarantee of believing. Even disciples had to come to faith when they saw him; so those who have not seen him can still have the blessedness of faith through believing the testimony of the first wit- nesses.

I have no simple explanations for why some people are people of faith and others are not. I do believe, however, that it is important to pray for a "holy imagination," not in the sense of imagining something to be true which is not - that would be self-deception - but rather, to have the spiritual freedom to be able to imagine the truth, which is that God's loving ways of operating are not always our own. As we pray for the gift of a "holy imagination," let us not fail to pray in gratitude for those people in our lives who have helped us to be the people of faith we are today... and let us always pray for those for whom faith is difficult.

Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.