Now that we are beginning to think about our Lenten season, I find myself deeply moved by Thomas Halik's "Touch the Wounds," a book that explores suffering, trust, and transformation in today's world. Yale staff and faculty selected this reading as our first book club of the year.
Halik’s reflections invite us to first consider in a new light the experience of Saint Thomas with the resurrected Christ, one that is often remembered for his doubt. Saint Thomas's insistence on seeing the wounds of Jesus is typically seen as a moment of lacking faith.
Yet, our book club discussions and Halik's insights suggest that God invites us to exercise a questioning faith and to see Him as a wounded God. Jesus chose to reveal His wounds to Thomas, emphasizing the reality of His suffering rather than solely His triumph in the resurrection.
In contemporary conversations about the resurgence of Christianity, we must question the nature of that God who returns to us. Is God in the flags and t-shirts proclaiming Him a dominant figure in the war of ideas? Or is God that wounded man whom Pilate could not see as performing the greatest act of conquest via his crucifixion? Saint Thomas saw Jesus experiencing abandonment akin to the human condition burdened by sin. But despite this abandonment, Thomas also witnessed Jesus’s unwavering faith, which enabled Him to atone for our sins, while unveiling His wounded heart.
As this act of sacrificial love tore apart the temple veil, uniting us as a single people and ending the divide between us, Catholics are invited to seek a continuous dialogue across factions. We Catholics are not only, but also.
We can use this sacred Lenten time to reflect on how the image of the wounded God shows us how to relive His crucifixion and how to rise through His resurrection.
Let's take our wounded God seriously – even in our moments of anger and doubt for the circumstances surrounding us – to sail past the sirens that seek to divert us from our true path to His heart. Amen.
