Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

Faith in the resurrection of Jesus is not based on the testimony of a bunch of gullible people. Mark tells us what a skeptical reception Mary Magdalene got when she tried to tell the disciples about seeing the Risen Lord. “When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it” (16:11). 

Similarly with the disciples who said they had met Jesus walking to Emmaus: “The others put no more faith in them than in Mary Magdalene” (13). The resurrection was not something psychologically convenient for the disciples, but something forced on them by reality and repeated testimony.

It is encouraging that all the evidence in the Gospels indicates how slow and uncomprehending the disciples were during his lifetime about who Jesus was. And, all the more, this should help us in our doubts. Some of our prayer should be for a firmer, more genuine faith in the Risen Lord and all that this means for human misery and death. The joy that echoes in the prayer of the church and in the music of the season can be truly ours if we recall and ponder the resistance of the disciples to the resurrection and how they came to believe. Present disruption will surely give way to Alleluias!

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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