“QUASIMODOGENITI”
Saint John 20: 19-31
Quasimodogeniti: 16 April Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
Do not criticize Saint Thomas. Although some of you were here on Easter. Thomas was not. We don’t know why. He did not apostatize and leave the Church. You are here the Sunday after Easter, BUT, so was Thomas. He was no C&E Christian. He was not a Millennial or Gen Z “none.” He was a martyr, a courageous Saint.
Again, it is truly amazing that so many “so-called” “Christians” say they believe in the miracles of Christ, but in reality, they only hold to some of His miracles. They say well of course He walked on water, stilled the sea, and gave sight to Bartimaeus, but there is no way He walked through a locked door into a room filled with fearful Disciples. They say, Jesus’ God part could have done it but not his actual human part—because flesh cannot penetrate wood. What a small God they have. And, of course they are the same ones who deny The Sacrament being what it is.
The Disciples had reasons to fear. They were targets of some of the Sanhedrin no doubt. They had no reason to panic or lose faith however.
You who are gathered here today, behind locked doors? I don’t even remember what our “policy” is at this point. You are fearful of many things. You should only be fearful of sinning; of being presumptuous; of not being here when Jesus comes for you. You should only be fearful of falling away from The True Faith because your intellect, emotions, acceptance of fake science, curiosity, inquisitiveness, creativity, and desire to be “nice” trumps the revealed Word of God.
Do not be afraid of the Jews—even the warlike Zionists. Pray for them. Pray for their conversion!
As a good Trinitarian, ah… “there’s the rub,” (more in due course) there are three key concepts—truths from God for you to feed upon in this remarkable text.
The first piece of Good News is Peace! The Lord doesn’t want you to have all sorts of stuff/mammon (although He does provide you with all that you need/1st Article explanation). He wants you to have Peace. “Peace to you” Christ spoke to The Disciples. “The Peace of The Lord (His actual Body and Blood) be with YOU, alway” Christ will speak to you shortly. His Peace which He gives you is not cessation from earthly struggles, battles, wars, defeats, and all that goes with being a soldier of The Cross. His Peace is Himself; for is He not The Prince of Peace, The King of Kings. His Peace is His Word spoken into your ears and His Flesh and Blood placed into your mouths. Period. If God’s actions do not give you Peace, then stop sinning by looking for feelings and results, and believe The Word: “This is My Body given for you, for the forgiveness of sins.”
The second piece of Good News, of Peace, is how Jesus gives. He did not “representationally” or “symbolically” obey The Commandments for 33 years of earthly and visible ministry. He did it with His actual Body and Will—The Second Perfect Adam redeeming the fallen world through obedience. He had the Israelites use actual and real lamb blood to slather over their homes—Moses sprinkled those Hebrews with actual blood—not memory blood.
You do not have a ghost God; you do not worship a Spirit Savior—though to be sure, God The Father; God The Paraclete, are indeed Spirit. But this is the true triune religion of Christianity, not Fatheranity or Ghostanity. You confessed The Creed. You know the Truth. This is The ever Incarnated One. Emmanuel (God with us) means God, not some ephemeral “essence” or neurons being tripped in your sinful brains. It’s all Jesus’ Body and Blood, Flesh and Blood, or it’s nothing at all. If He did not rise from the dead then it was only a demonic apparition in that upper room. If He rose from the dead, like He did, then it is pure Mercy, and, His way of doing things, that He not only showed them His wounded hands and feet and side (scarring over already, still red or pinkish, or bruised?) but also by having them all handle Him, touch Him. They embraced Him in this touching even as He embraced them all, all of you, in His loving arms with the hug of Holy Righteousness.
Jesus breathed on His friends and gave them the gift of Ordination, of being His sent-ones to forgive and bind; to wash, feed, and teach—Publicly, in His Name and stead. Jesus has breathed on all of you in your own + Washing, in His Absolution after you confessed this morning, and soon at His Sacrament. You are inflated by His love in actual presence. Or, did you think it was only “metaphorical” and poetic that you are called “temples of The Holy Spirit” and that Christ is “In You?”
Thomas was not there then, but he was there the following week—on Quasimodogeniti Sunday. Every thing Christ gave to the other 10, He then bestowed upon Thomas—again, for your benefit. The Holy Office of The Ministry is for you The Bride.
The final point, the last piece of truly Peace, Good News, is that Jesus, His Body and Blood, is God, the Body and Blood of God. Not only has The Church had to deal with heresies and false teachings from the time of Adam, Noah, Abraham and the other Patriarchs and Prophets; the Church has had demonic teachings insinuated into it from the time of John and the other Apostles. No heresy has ripped at the Church like the heresy of Arianism. Now Arians love Jesus, but so too do Muslims love Allah, and Buddhists love Buddha (or what not). But a unitarian is simply not a Trinitarian Christian…NOT a Christian. While The true Doctrine/Correct Teaching of three Persons-One God, is revealed and made manifest in both Christ’s Baptism and in His instructions to the Apostles on Whose Name they are to Baptize others into, Saint Thomas’ confession is dispositive. Had Thomas been incorrect He would have been rebuked, both instantly and institutionally. But he was not. He was praised for believing after seeing. Five words of Gospel that forever bury the five Books of The Law—Jesus healing, forgiving, and satisfying Moses’ sin, the Israelites’ sin, and your sin. “My Lord and my God.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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