april 2002

In John’s Gospel, “seeing” Jesus is of capital importance. It’s the evident proof that God truly became man. In the very first pages of the Gospel we read the impassioned witness of the Apostle: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory” (Jn 1:14).
We hear the exclamations of those who saw Jesus especially after his resurrection. Mary of Magdala announced: “I have seen the Lord” (Jn 20:18), and the apostles as well: “We have seen the Lord” (Jn 20:24). Also the disciple whom Jesus loved “saw and believed” (Jn 20:8).

The only apostle who didn’t see the risen Lord was Thomas, because he wasn’t present on Easter day when the Lord appeared to the other disciples. They all believed because they had seen him. Thomas would have believed too, he said, if, like the others, he had seen. Jesus held him to his word and eight days after the resurrection, he showed himself to Thomas so that he too would believe. When Thomas saw Jesus standing in front of him, he burst forth with the most profound and complete profession of faith ever pronounced in the New Testament: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28). Then Jesus said to him: “You have come to believe because you have seen me.”

«Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!»

Like Thomas, we too would like to see Jesus, especially when we feel alone, when we are undergoing a trial or suffering hardships…. We can relate to those Greeks who went up to Philip and said: “Sir, we would like to see Jesus” (Jn 12:21). How beautiful it would be, we tell one another, if we had lived during the time of Jesus: we would have been able to see him, to touch him, to listen to him, to speak with him…. If only he could appear to us too, as he appeared to Mary of Magdala, to the Twelve, to the disciples…

The people who were with him were really blessed. Even Jesus said so in a beatitude reported in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke: “Blessed are your eyes, because they see [me]” (Mt 13:16). 10:23 “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see” (Lk 10:23). And yet, Jesus told Thomas of another beatitude:

«Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!»

Jesus was thinking of us. We can no longer see him with these eyes of ours, but we can see him with the eyes of faith. Actually, our situation is not very different from those who lived during the time of Jesus. Then, too, it wasn’t enough to see him. Many of the people who saw him didn’t believe in him. With the eyes of their body they saw a man. Other eyes were needed to recognize him as the Son of God.
Many of the early Christians hadn’t personally seen Jesus. They, too, lived the beatitude which we are called to live today. In the first letter of Peter we read: “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of (your) faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pt 1:8-9).

It was very clear to the early Christians that the faith Jesus was speaking of comes from love. Believing means discovering that we are loved by God. It means opening our hearts to grace and allowing ourselves to be invaded by his love. It means entrusting ourselves completely to this love by responding to it with our love. If you love, God is present in you and bears witness to himself within you. He gives us an entirely new outlook to the reality around us. Faith makes us see events from his viewpoint. It makes us discover his plan for us, for others, and for all creation.

«Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed!»

Theresa of the Child Jesus is a luminous example of this new way of seeing things with the eyes of faith. One night, because of tuberculosis which would lead to her death, she spit up blood. She could have said: “I spit up blood.” Instead, she said: “My Spouse has arrived.” She believed without seeing. She believed that Jesus was coming to visit her in that suffering and that he loved her: her Lord and her God.

Faith helps us to see everything with new eyes, as it helped Theresa of the Child Jesus. Just as she translated that event into “God loves me”, we too can translate every event of our life into “God loves me”, or “It’s you who have come to visit me”, or “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28).

In heaven we will see God as he is, but even now faith opens our heart to the realities of heaven and enables us to glimpse everything in the light of heaven.

Chiara Lubich