Today, on this Divine Mercy Sunday, we hear from John’s Gospel about the two appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples. The entire gospel passage (John 20:19-31) could be prayed “Ignatian style,” imagining the scene, the action, the things you are seeing, the words you are hearing—just as Fr. Phil has been suggesting in these articles during the past Lenten season. In fact, St. Ignatius has the retreatant pray with today’s gospel as part of the Spiritual Exercises retreat.

If you do use this gospel passage for an imaginative prayer, it would be good to pay special attention to the feelings that you see being acted out in the scene, and the feelings that the passage is stirring in you. Lots of feelings are going on in the account: the disciples have locked the doors because they are afraid; then they are filled with joy when they see Jesus alive. Perhaps there are feelings of desire, surrender, and courage as Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit onto the disciples, at the same time speaking of forgiveness, and sending them (beyond the locked doors!) to continue his mission in the world. With the help of your imagination, can you enter the disciples’ feelings? What are your own feelings as you do the prayer? And see how the Holy Spirit leads you as you imagine Thomas and his feelings. When Thomas says, “Unless I … I will not believe,” you might imagine anger, defensiveness, self-pity, and a hardening of the heart. (Can you recall the times when you have had such feelings? Were they coming from God, or from somewhere else?) And when Jesus invites Thomas to put his finger into the nail marks and to put his hand into Jesus’ side, and Thomas does no more than speak and say, “My Lord and my God!”, what has just happened in Thomas’ heart? What did he just let go of? What change in feelings did Thomas experience in that moment? How does he feel about again being in union with his fellow disciples, after having spent a week spiritually on his own?

Finally, as you are praying, look at Jesus’ final words to Thomas: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” What kind of feeling is it to be “blessed” like that? Is it the same feeling that Thomas was having after seeing Jesus? Would you like to have that feeling yourself?

In prayer,
Fr. Bruce Bavinger, S.J.
Parochial Vicar