by Fr. Edward Foley, Capuchin<\/em><\/p>\n A few years ago I had the privilege In his contribution to our joint project he narrated a section She has come to Robert de Braidicourt, a military squire, The squire is taken aback: \u201cHow do you mean? Voices?\u201d Robert is unconvinced: \u201cThey come from your imagination.\u201d Pastor Lose then notes how this scene sheds light on If that is true, then one of the tasks of preaching \u2013 of this homily \u2013 Today\u2019s readings are familiar to us: But how do we engage these ancient texts for Poet and preacher Thomas Troeger opens a door here, Troeger\u2019s work inspires me: And it is today in which I set these lost scenes and characters. There are many elements of the gospel Apparently, they had enough paper products But if they were safe and secure in their self-isolation, There is a throw-away word in the Gospel The poet Denise Levertov (d. 1997) had a fondness for Thomas, In the hot street at noon I saw him I heard him cry out, weeping and speak a man whose entire being The twin of my birth Thomas\u2019 spiritual twin was someone who knew grief intimately. In these horrific days These are the metaphorical twins of Thomas I imagine Thomas was out there with his twins, In my imagination And were the other disciples endangered by Thomas To be honest, Thomas\u2019 imagined foolhardiness Holy week is over and Good Friday We are a community. As we pray for comfort and healing, We are not only touching the wounds of Christ, we are now bearing them on our individual and collective bodies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":51744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[3119,3294],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-plaza-new-ws","category-ars-praedicandi"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nof collaborating on a writing project
\nwith a very gifted and imaginative preacher, David Lose.<\/p>\n
\nfrom George Bernard Shaw\u2019s play Saint Joan<\/em>
\nin which Joan of Arc seeks help in her crusade against the English.<\/p>\n
\nto solicit his support for her campaign.
\nIn the course of Robert\u2019s questions about her intentions,
\nJoan reveals that she hears voices directing her moves.
\nIn fact, one such voice has instructed her
\n<\/span>to come to petition Robert.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI hear voices telling me what to do,\u201d Joan replies,
\nadding, \u201cThey come from God.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nTo which Joan answers, \u201cOf course.
\nThat is how messages of God come to us\u201d (Shaw 1924, 59).<\/span><\/p>\n
\nan important, though often overlooked element of faith.
\nWhile it is easy to assume that faith is primarily about knowledge,
\nit is also very much about imagination.
\nFor whatever knowledge or experience one may possess,
\none still has to imagine the difference faith makes,
\nthe world it assumes, the actions it demands,
\nand the kind of life it invites.
\nImagination is central to the life of faith and a crucial means
\nby which God\u2019s presence is mediated to us.<\/p>\n
\nis to bolster people of faith by stimulating their
\nreligious imaginations.
\nHelping you \u2013 as well as me \u2013 envision
\nwhere God is as the world is quarantined;
\nwhere grace is, when first responders around the globe
\nare dying;
\nwhere hope is, as unemployment rises,
\n<\/span>incomes evaporate;
\nand fear, even desperation, invade our lives.<\/p>\n
\nThomas the so-called doubter
\nwho makes the ultimate gospel profession,
\nthe idealized community of Acts
\nliving in tranquility together,
\nand Peter promising us joy and faith more precious than gold
\nafter the trials of the current age.<\/p>\n
\ninterpreting this unexpected medical and economic crisis?
\nWhat do they say about navigating uncharted waters,
\nabout negotiating this personal and social threat?
\nAbout faith at a time of such massive suffering and death?
\n<\/span>It may take a little imagination.<\/p>\n
\nsuggesting that one ancient form of preaching yet useful today
\nis based on the presumption that there is more to the story
\nthan what is related in the biblical text.
\nTroeger argues that these are not flights of pure fancy
\nbut theologically disciplined acts of imagination
\nthat seek to honor the spirit of the text,
\nwhile they draw upon larger perspectives in the gospels,
\n<\/span>in our traditions, and in our experience.<\/p>\n
\nto theologize in story form about what scenes might have been missing \u2026
\nwhat events could have been erased \u2026
\nwhat characters were probably forgotten \u2026
\nthat render this tale of a doubting Thomas life-giving for today.<\/p>\n
\nFor today, this Sunday, this season is when we announce
\nResurrection as a contemporary gift,
\nGod\u2019s life-giving Spirit as a modern companion,
\nCrucifixion as a dreadful reality in the current age,
\nand stone-rolling as well as tomb emptying
\nmysteries of the eternal now and not simply historical events.<\/p>\n
\nthat lend themselves to a modern interpretation,
\nwith the disciples apparently self-quarantined
\nin some unknown location,
\nfearing the same infectious hatred that killed their Lord
\nand now threatens their well-being.<\/p>\n
\nand a well-stocked pantry and liquor cabinet
\nso that they didn\u2019t need to venture outside.<\/p>\n
\nwhy did Thomas venture out?
\nWould he dare defy Mayor Lightfoot\u2019s stringent directives?
\nWas he at the Walgreens or sneaking out to the Lakefront?
\nWas he wearing a mask? Did he have hand sanitizer?
\nWas he maintaining social distancing?
\nAnd would he endanger the other disciplines in returning,
\nexposing them to a contagion
\nthey were trying to avoid?<\/p>\n
\nthat helps me imagine answers to these questions.
\nIt is a Greek term to which we pay little attention
\n\u201cdidymus\u201d \u2013 which means twin.
\nActually, the name Thomas itself was derived
\nfrom the Aramaic word for Twin.
\nSo in his name and in his title the gospel asserts he had
\na sibling counterpart.
\nWe don\u2019t know if it was a male or female,
\nidentical or fraternal,
\nbut Thomas was one of a pair \u2026 a companion \u2026 a counterpart.<\/p>\n
\neven writing a Mass of sorts for the Day of St Thomas Didymus.<\/em>
\nIn another poem she explores the saint\u2019s \u201ctwinness\u201d
\nnot by conjuring his biological sibling,
\nbut by imagining Thomas finding his spiritual twin
\nin the doubting father of the gospel of Mark (9:24)
\nwho brings his possessed son to Jesus for healing
\nand exclaims \u201cI do believe, help me overcome my unbelief.\u201d
\nThe poet puts Thomas in the scene and has him speak thus:<\/p>\n
\na small man
\ngray but vivid, standing forth
\nbeyond the crowd\u2019s buzzing
\nholding in desperate grip his shaking
\nteethgnashing son,
\nand thought him my brother.<\/p>\n
\nthose words,
\nLord, I believe, help thou
\nmine unbelief,
\nand knew him
\n<\/span>my twin:<\/p>\n
\nhad knotted itself
\ninto the one tightdrawn question,
\nWhy,
\nwhy has this child lost his childhood in suffering,
\nwhy is this child who will soon be a man
\ntormented, torn, twisted?
\nWhy is he cruelly punished
\nwho has done nothing except be born?<\/p>\n
\nwas not so close
\nas that man I heard
\nsay what my heart
\nsighed with each beat, my breath silently
\ncried in and out,
\nin and out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThis twin was someone who parented the broken,
\nwho daily encountered crucifixion,
\nand yet clung to hope and professed faith.<\/p>\n
\nwhen we are ordered and cajoled to shelter in place,
\nthere are angels and heroes, in the hospitals and on the streets,
\nwho wager their own well being for the sake of others.
\n<\/span>Some drive a bus, some check out your groceries.
\n<\/span>Others show up when we dial 911,
\nor comfort the dying as substitute families
\nthrough shielded faces and gloved hands.<\/p>\n
\nlike the heart broken father in the gospel of Mark.
\nThese are the people who confront danger, even death,
\nyet cling to hope, though some of them in truth will die
\nand sadly have died.<\/p>\n
\nthe med techs and nursing home care givers,
\nthe firemen and paramedics,
\nand they are showing him how to touch the wounds.
\nThey are teaching him where to find the newly crucified.
\nThey are inviting him to recognize the true Christ,
\nthe one poets call Jesus of the Scars:
\nnever immune to the cost of love.
\nNever immune to the price of his own belovedness.<\/p>\n
\nThomas was insistent … maybe even belligerent …
\nabout putting is hand in nail marks
\nand the pierced side of the Lord,
\nbecause he knew that it was only a wounded Christ
\nthat was an authentic Christ.
\nIt was only a broken body
\nthat could heal a broken people.
\nAnd that it was only a God-Man
\nwho himself had descended into hell
\nwho could raise up all the broken, of every age
\nfrom whatever hell they are now enduring.<\/p>\n
\nand his reckless behavior
\nas he returned to their sheltered environment,
\nbringing with him some unwelcomed pathogen,
\nsome fearful vapor or breath?<\/p>\n
\ndid jeopardize something, did put something at risk.
\nFor it threatened and imperiled a quarantined spirituality
\nthat sometimes allow Christians to believe
\nin the complacency that frequently lures us all \u2026
\nthat we can have today\u2019s first reading without the second…
\nthat we can have some kind of idealized community
\nwithout suffering,
\nand that a faith more precious than gold
\ncan possibly be smelted without the fire of Golgotha.<\/p>\n
\ndoes not appear again on the calendar
\nuntil April 2nd of 2021.
\nBut the mystery of the death of the Lord
\ncannot be shelved for another 12 months,
\nnor the gift of resurrection be pried free
\nfrom the necessary suffering \u2013 even death \u2013
\nthat gave it birth.<\/p>\n
\nWe are a city.
\nWe are a nation.
\nWe are a world
\nthat is experiencing its own stigmata of sorts,
\nlike a Francis of Assisi.
\nWe are not only touching the wounds of Christ,
\nwe are now bearing them
\non our individual and collective bodies.<\/p>\n
\nfor courage and hope,
\nfor peace and new flourishing,
\nwe also pray that the invitation of this terrible plague
\n<\/span>be not too easily forgotten \u2026
\nThat coming this close to Jesus scars
\nand the profound wounds on his body in the world,
\nfresh charity might flourish,
\nrenewed respect for all humanity might arise,
\nan invigorated social bonding across races
\nand ethnicities might emerge,
\nand authentic resurrection might bloom,
\neradicating darkness, fear and hopelessness,
\nThrough Christ our Lord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"