WHERE DO WE STAND WITH CHRIST?
Feast of Saint Thomas, apostle
My dear encountered couples:
Thomas doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead. We are very familiar with the story of how Jesus removed his doubt. And we should be grateful for the proof Thomas made Jesus give him. What Jesus had to do to convince Thomas is a help to us who cannot touch Our Lord in person. Though doubts about Christ might flit through our minds occasionally, we are most certainly among those who have not seen, yet we believe. Our greatest doubts are more than likely not about Jesus Christ, they are about ourselves.
Where do we stand with Christ? Is he happy with the way we live, or do we disappoint him? Do we pray enough, and well enough? Do we try hard enough to love, to forgive, to avoid temptation? Am I in the state of grace or am I just fooling myself? Am I progressing or regressing in goodness and holiness? These and other questions we would like to know the answers to, but none of which will be clear to us until we stand before Christ face to face in eternity. Now we see ourselves dimly, and with confusion, then we will see ourselves clearly. Will we like what we see? Maybe we should take our sight off ourselves more often and focus it upon Christ.
Yes, we have to examine ourselves once in awhile and assess what we need to work on to improve ourselves. But holiness is the work of God. Much of it goes on, so to speak, behind closed doors. We will not get a good look behind those doors until we leave this world. We will not be able to assess ourselves until we have died. Until then our faith is being tested - our faith in Christ to save us, and our faith in ourselves to be worth saving.
