Readings:
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31

An Outgoing Church

My fondest memories of Pope Francis emphasize how much he wanted an “outgoing” — missionary — Church: a Church that goes out to others, keeps doors open, and shifts from mere conservation to active evangelization. I would imagine Pope Leo XIV wants the same from the Church — a Church that does not hide the Gospel but witnesses to the Passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord.

In this Sunday’s Gospel the disciples are not out in the streets witnessing the Resurrection. They are hiding behind locked doors, afraid. They are more interested in conserving their lives than actively evangelizing.

And that is exactly when Jesus chooses to show up. He comes into the locked room — unannounced, undeserved — and the first thing out of his mouth is not a reprimand. It is a gift:

Shalom. Peace be with you. La paz esté con ustedes.

That, my friends, is the Pasch. Not triumph from a distance but the peace of Presence in the midst of fear.

Born from a Wound

Peter tells us where that peace comes from. He calls it a living hope — spes viva — born through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. I want to sit with that word born, because this is not religious optimism dressed up in theological language. This is something that had to pass through a wound in order to exist.

The Fathers of the Church lingered over the blood and water that flowed from Christ’s pierced side — not as pious poetry but as a theological claim: here is a source. Here is where the Church comes from. Chrysostom made it explicit: just as God opened the side of the sleeping Adam to bring forth Eve, so Christ’s side was opened in the sleep of death to bring forth the Church. Ambrose went further, speaking not of the side but of the pierced heart of Christ hanging dead on the Cross — something almost surgical, something that calls to mind not just a wound but a birth. And Augustine gives the ecclesial horizon: “His side was transfixed with a spear, and the sacraments flowed forth, whence the Church was born.”

Later scholars like Caroline Walker Bynum have drawn out what the Fathers were already circling: that on the Cross, God gives life from God’s own body, at God’s own cost. The Spanish language carries this theology in an everyday phrase — when a woman gives birth, we say da a luz, she brings to light. To give birth is to give light.

And this is precisely what we see in the image of Divine Mercy, so central to this very Sunday. The water and blood from the pierced side of Jesus are rendered not as streams but as rays of light — one red, one white — pouring out from the wound into the world. The Church is not merely born from that side. She is brought to light. Christ, the New Adam, da a luz to his Bride from the Cross.

Thomas and the Wounds

Now, Thomas. We call him “doubting” as though doubt were his sin. But Thomas is honest — he will not borrow someone else’s Paschal experience. And Jesus does not crush him for that. He meets him and invites him: “Put your finger here… and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Something almost tender, somewhat playful. As if to say: even your doubt is not beyond the reach of my mercy. Paintings show Thomas reaching out his hand, but in John’s Gospel Thomas doesn’t even touch. He is seen by Jesus, he sees Christ, and everything collapses into that magnificent confession: “My Lord and my God.”

Augustine says Christ retained his scars “that they might be touched by the doubting Apostle, and the wounds of his heart be healed.” The wounds are not only reminders of suffering — they become the place where unbelief is healed by mercy and brought to the light of faith. The wound becomes a doorway. In faith, Thomas enters in: se le da a luz — he is given light, and finds rest in the Sacred Heart of our Lord.

Doubt Is Not the Enemy. Isolation Is.

But notice: Thomas almost missed it. Not because he doubted, but because he was absent. He was somewhere else, alone, working it out by himself.

Doubt is not the enemy. Isolation is.

Birth is a family affair. Madres dan a luz en familia — mothers bring a child into the light of a household. Thomas needed presence. He needed community. And so do we.

The Pasch Takes Root

Which brings me to Acts. The Pasch taking root looks like this: they gathered, prayed, broke bread, and — concretely, materially — no one claimed private ownership of what they had. As a Franciscan I am always affirmed in my way of life when I read it. Not because it is utopian but because it is logical. When you know that everything you have flowed, like water and blood, from a self-giving love you did nothing to earn — you stop clutching. You begin to give to the household into which you have been born, in which you have been brought to light.

That community in Acts is the very opposite of the locked room. They are not conserving. They are not hiding. They have become the outgoing Church that Pope Francis dreamed of. The one, I suspect, Leo XIV is praying for.

Shalom

Where are your locked doors? A fear carried in this messy, war-torn world? A doubt you are embarrassed to name? A wound from someone in community?

Leave the door locked if you need to. The Risen Lord will come anyway. And when he does, he will not begin with a reprimand. He will begin with peace.

Receive it. Bring your doubts into the light of the Church community. Let that mercy become something concrete — something you give away.

Because the Pasch of Resurrection is not a memory we commemorate. It is a movement we are still inside of.

Christ still enters locked rooms. Still shows his wounds — those wounds from which the Church herself was born. Still breathes his Spirit into frightened communities. Still sends his people out.

Shalom. Peace be with you. La paz esté con ustedes.

It is still being said. Over God’s Church. Over the CTU community. Over you.

A living hope — still being born, dandose a luz.

Gilberto Cavazos-González, OFM