“The eleven disciples went to Galilee … When they saw him, they worshipped, but they doubted.” The Gospel begins with these words (Matt 28:16-17). How can the disciples still be doubting, even as Jesus gives them their great commission, to “make disciples of all nations”? Well, for Matthew — and even more in Mark’s Gospel — doubt and disciples go together. We see this lots in our Easter season readings. Jesus has to prove it really is He when he appears to them. He lets Thomas touch his wounds, he eats fish with them, he cooks breakfast for them and breaks bread for disciples on the road to Emmaus. I am personally glad that we have these reports of how “they doubted.” These stories touch our times, touch my own faith life. Faith is always choosing to believe despite doubt. The disciples had to confront the mystery that the embodied Jesus they knew was no more, in fact was leaving them (through death, through ascension). They experience his absence as a hole in their hearts and worlds, at the very moment when they were being asked to preach a resurrected Lord to an incredulous audience. They had to let go of the sensible presence of their beloved rabbi and friend and instead believe in the Spirit, making the Risen Christ present to them. They had to let the risen Lord speak now through remembered words, through the community, through beliefs like the kingdom that Jesus taught them, through the breaking of the bread. No wonder they doubted even as they worshipped. In fact I, and perhaps many of you, experience faith just like this. We also worship but still question. We choose faith within a Mystery we cannot fully understand. That we can do this is for us, as it was for the disciples of long ago, a gift, the gift of faith.
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia
I am excited to read your blog. We went to Regina together graduating in 1961.I got married and you entered the convent. We are both in our commitments today. My name was Karen Marx. Your in the love of Jesus, Karen