Unfortunately, there aren’t always the same number of people here in Church or thinking about Easter throughout the whole seven weeks as there is on Easter Sunday itself.  It’s funny but the Toronto area has one of the oldest fairs in North America, called the Canadian National Exhibition which is only on for a few weeks each year, just like the Easter season, but it is busy every day while it is on, not just on opening day.  In this part of the world we call the Canadian National Exhibition the CNE.  But some people also use that term for something else, they talk about CNE Christians, those who only show up at Christmas ‘n Easter!

In fact, I saw Father Neil stop a man outside church last Sunday after the Easter Mass and say to him, “My friend, we need you to join the service of the Lord!”

The man said to Father, “I have joined the service of the Lord!”

So Father said, “Then how come we only see you on Christmas and Easter?”

The man looked around furtively, lowered his voice and said, “Because, Father, I am in the Secret Service!”

Easter season is a time when we need to quit the Secret Service and let the world see that we are Christians.  I went to visit a friend the other day and he greeted me by opening his door and instead of saying “Hello”, he said, “He is risen! Alleluia!” 

And I thought, what a wonderful way to reaffirm our faith, to have the courage to let the world know where we stand and not hide it away.  Our Lenten sacrifices and almsgiving and prayer have hopefully made us more aware of the place of the Spirit in our lives and now that we prepare for the feast of His coming at Pentecost, let us keep that awareness bright through open signs and courageous testimony to what we believe!

Today’s gospel puts us back with the disciples in what must have been those dark days after Christ’s death.  They were hiding and afraid, afraid that the mob who crucified Jesus would come after them next.  Everything they thought they believed in about Jesus starting the new kingdom came crashing down and confusing stories were circulating about the tomb being empty and they didn’t know what to do.  And so when Thomas hears his friends claim they have seen Jesus, it is just one more seemingly impossible burden to bear and he won’t buy it.  I can almost see him saying, “More stories, everyone has lost their minds – well, not me, I want to see for myself!”

And for this very human reaction, he has been known through all of history as “Doubting Thomas” and anyone who asks a question first is given the same nickname, “He’s a real Doubting Thomas!”  It really is a little unfair, especially when you consider that so much of the way we live today, from our legal system to our business contracts are based on absolute proof only! 

Why, one of the US states, Missouri, is called the “Show me State!” and the US President that came from there after the second world War, Harry S. Truman, was famous for following this principle, but he was never “Doubting Harry!”  They are proud of their reputation as never taking anything without proof. 

We all use sayings like, “Believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear!” and yet we have given poor old Thomas his derogatory nickname for all time – “Doubting Thomas!”

Jesus points out what a blessing it is to have the kind of Faith that can believe things without seeing them, and most of us are at least reasonable about it.  I’ve been to San Francisco and I’ve seen the Golden Gate bridge with my own eyes and so I know it is there.  If I told you about it and showed you a picture, then you would probably believe it is there too even though you have never seen it.  But there’s big difference between believing a story about a place that exists and believing a story that someone has risen from the dead.

If someone came into the church, someone that we all knew and trusted as a pillar of the community, say a senior member of the Knights of Columbus or the Legion of Mary and walked up here in front of me and said, “I have just seen a vision of the Virgin Mary, appearing as the Star of the Sea over the harbour outside and she told me to tell you that we must all send all our money to Iraq right now!” 

How many of us would leap up with joy at the blessing we had been given and run to the bank – and how many of us would reach for the cell phone in our pocket or purse and call “911” for the men in the white coats!

We have to learn to believe, we can’t always have perfect proof and perfect knowledge.  We have to trust that the Spirit will guide us and that we will recognize the truth when we hear it and see it, even without the final proof and we’ll know when we are being led astray.  It kind of like those hard-boiled eggs at Easter, when the little girl said to her mother, “I don’t know what rotten eggs smell like, how will I know if my egg is rotten?”  and her mother smiled and said, “Don’t worry honey, you’ll know when you smell it!”

We have so much more evidence today than Thomas did, we have the scriptures and two thousand years of faith in action and yet we still doubt sometimes!  We can keep praying to have faith, to be blessed as Jesus promised when we do.  But just like Easter is more than just Easter Sunday, living our faith is more than just believing.  We need to participate and commit our actions as well.  We can be strengthened here at the table of the Eucharist and the go out and try to build the community that our communion enables us to do.

Thomas may have doubted at the beginning but his wonderful declaration of faith, “My Lord and my God!” is still a model for all of us and it’s the phrase I use every time I see Father raise the Host on high after the consecration in the hope that I will have the same dedication and perseverance as Thomas did in the rest of his life.  Thomas was a tireless builder of the Church who went all the way to India in his lifetime to spread the word.  He may have doubted at first but he delivered when it counted.