Doubting Thomas

Yesterday's gospel was "doubting Thomas" (Jn 20:19-31).

Our homilist thought that Thomas gets criticized unfairly for his failure to believe his friends' story. "Sure, it's easy for us to criticize Thomas, because we've been hearing about the resurrection all our lives. Of course, we believe. But put yourself in his place. He was hearing about something that had never happened before -- ever! It's not so surprising that he was, shall we say, skeptical."

True enough.

But Thomas gets a bad rap in another respect, too. Yes, he insisted on seeing the wounds before he'd believe, and the other disciples didn't. But the other disciples didn't need to insist; Jesus showed them voluntarily, without being asked. What reason do we have to think that they would have believed that the person in front of them was the Lord if they hadn't seen the wounds too, just like Thomas?

Not to mention the fact that some of us who have heard about the resurrection all our lives are still struggling to make sense of it.