Please read the passage before the homily.
My sisters and brothers,
It was the evening of that day. Jesus had died. There were rumors. The disciples were afraid of the leaders of the Jewish people and had huddled themselves behind locked doors. Nobody could get in without the password.
Nevertheless, Jesus stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” Jesus also showed them his hands and his side. Jesus had risen from the dead.
The disciples saw and believed. Where was Thomas? He was not the Thomas who doubted, but he was the Thomas who provided one more proof of the resurrection of Jesus: he had touched the wounds of Jesus. The risen Jesus had a body. Jesus was risen from the dead and he was not some ghost, but he had a living body. Thomas believed.
The absence of Thomas that first night provided an opportunity to show the proof of touch for the resurrection of Jesus. Because of Thomas’ absence we have another way to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus.
Why did John write his gospel? John wrote the gospel so that we “could believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief we may have life in his name.”
What the disciples saw on that first night, what Thomas touched, and what John wrote are so that we who have not seen, like Thomas, may believe and believing can have the life of Jesus in us. Blessed are we for not having seen. (The life of Jesus means that Jesus is alive in us, that we are Jesus alive in our world, and that Jesus animates us.)