Dear Tanya,<\/p>\n
I am delighted to see how much progress you\u2019re making in the spiritual life.\u00a0 The complaint expressed in your last email was right on target.\u00a0 You are absolutely correct: if only we had more faith!\u00a0 You have advanced to the point where you really wish to do God\u2019s will over and above all other things, and you have come to realize that you don\u2019t always know what God\u2019s will is \u2013 or at least, sometimes you find it hard to keep in mind.\u00a0 Frankly, I think it\u2019s more of the latter: you know what God\u2019s will is \u2013 the commandments, the duties of your state in life, spreading the faith, the dictates of your conscience \u2013 but you don\u2019t always see God\u2019s will in the particular activity your doing at the moment.\u00a0 And that is why you need more faith, so you can be aware of God\u2019s presence \u2013 his active, loving presence \u2013 in your life, every moment of your life, in every activity, encounter, struggle, and joy.\u00a0 Well, the good news is that today\u2019s saint teaches us all how to grow in faith.<\/p>\n
Thomas was one of the Twelve Apostles.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know the circumstances of his being called by Christ, but we know that he was a courageous and outspoken fellow.\u00a0 We also know that he was a bit temperamental: he wasn\u2019t with the other Apostles on the evening of the Resurrection \u2013 he had gone off on his own, and he wouldn\u2019t believe the testimony of his comrades when they told him the Lord had risen; he demanded to see and touch Christ\u2019s wounds for himself.<\/p>\n
And Jesus indulged his request.\u00a0 A week after Easter, Christ appeared once again to the Apostles and invited Thomas to touch his wounds, at which point Thomas uttered one of the most beautiful prayers in Scripture: \u201cMy Lord and my God!\u201d\u00a0 That was a prayer of deep faith: having beheld the Resurrected Christ, he immediately declared his faith in Christ as God and Savior (\u201cLord\u201d was the term the Jews of the time used for God).<\/p>\n
Sometimes we think that it must have been easy for Thomas to believe, since he saw Christ.\u00a0 But he still had to make that leap of faith \u2013 Jesus was still Jesus, and not all who saw him believed that he was Lord and God.<\/p>\n
Our own faith gets bolstered by Thomas\u2019s experience, but that experience also tells us how we ourselves can go about deepening our faith.\u00a0 To come to his declaration of faith, Thomas asked and acted.\u00a0 These are the two ways to increase our faith: to ask God to increase it for us (faith is supernatural virtue, given by God and directed to God, so we need God to help us make it grow) and to use it, to make acts of faith, to utter prayers like St Thomas\u2019s frequently, daily, all the time.\u00a0 In that sense virtues are like muscles, the more you use them the stronger they get.\u00a0 When was the last time you \u201cexercised\u201d your faith?\u00a0 It\u2019s something you can do when you\u2019re walking down the street or sitting at the beach: \u201cLord, I believe in you, in your Resurrection, in your love for me\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Acts of faith build up the virtue of faith, and the virtue of faith will enable you to see more and more God\u2019s hand in all you do.<\/p>\n
Thomas didn\u2019t forget his lesson.\u00a0 He was sold as a slave to a king in southern India, who ordered him to build a magnificent palace (Thomas was a carpenter).\u00a0 But Thomas used the money to help the poor instead, for which the king imprisoned him in anticipation of having him flogged alive.\u00a0 Soon thereafter, however, the king\u2019s brother died and saw a beautiful palace in heaven, which an angel told him had been built there for the king by the charitable deeds of Thomas.\u00a0 The brother was permitted to return to the king in order to try and buy the heavenly palace from him, but when the king heard what had happened, he wouldn\u2019t sell.\u00a0 He released Thomas and asked to become a Christian.\u00a0 Thomas\u2019s faith in Christ has spawned the first Christian community in India.<\/p>\n
Faith opens up these kinds of vistas to us \u2013 marvelous vistas.\u00a0 May you be blessed with them forever.<\/p>\n
Your loving uncle,<\/p>\n
Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Tanya, I am delighted to see how much progress you\u2019re making in the spiritual life.\u00a0 The complaint expressed in your last email was right on target.\u00a0 You are absolutely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n