John 20, 19-31 Second Sunday of Easter;Eight days later, Jesus came.

Sharing Guidelines
*Sharing is not a time for teaching or debate; it is a time to sense the marvelous work of the Holy Spirit who leads the gathering.
*Reflection sharing is not meant to teach others but to share the meaning you personally have discovered. Therefore, do not criticize or debate another person’s sharing. Avoid boasting of your own understanding or knowledge.
*Respect the grace of the Holy Spirit, who reveals the meaning of the Word while dwelling among us, and listen attentively to others’ sharing, holding it in your heart.
*Keep confidential any personal reflections or stories shared in the group; practicing brotherly love means not passing along private matters outside the meeting.
*When speaking, always use the first person singular (“I”). Be careful not to distance or generalize your story by using the third person (“he,” “they”) or the first person plural (“we”).
*Keep it short.

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Second Sunday of Easter John 20:19-31
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. 13 The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 (Jesus) said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. 23 Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” 24 Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” 26 Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”

27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of (his) disciples that are not written in this book. 31 But these are written that you may (come to) believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.
-The Gospel of the Lord -Praise to you Lord, Jesus Christ

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Reflection:

How can we meet Jesus and have faith that leads to salvation? What is the best way?
We should not be like the musk deer. The deer smells a good scent and spends its whole life looking for it. Only just before death does it realize that the scent came from its own body. In the same way, we should not wander our whole life looking for God far away. The risen Jesus is very close to us. The Gospel clearly tells us where the Lord shows himself.

I once shared a story about a priest whose father died in a gas explosion and then came back to life by a miracle. After hearing this, someone told me a similar story. She was the daughter of a parish leader in a church in Ansan. She went on a retreat, and three people drowned in an accident. Thinking of the family’s pain, the hospital did not move her body to the morgue. Instead, they kept her in the ICU for one day.

When the church members heard this, all the believers gathered in the hospital hallway and prayed for her all night. A priest came early in the morning to pray and said he felt that the child would live. The people prayed even more. In the morning, the girl who had died came back to life. Only the child who was prayed for lived. The other two did not wake up. She later grew up and is now a healthy young adult. Waking up after being dead for several hours with no problems is truly a miracle.

If someone wanted to have faith, where should that person have been at that time? If they were among the people who believed in the resurrection, they would also have believed that the Lord was with them. But if someone searched for God alone, far away from others, it would be very hard to reach the same faith. This is because the Lord is present where two or three gather in his name.

In the Gospel of John, one very important word is “remain.” John came to believe after staying with Jesus for one day. Jesus also teaches, through the image of the vine and the branches, that we must stay closely connected to Christ and the Church. Today’s Gospel tells us how Thomas reached faith in the resurrection. When Jesus first appeared, Thomas was not there. But today, because Thomas stayed with the other disciples, he was able to see the risen Jesus.

Jesus says that those who believe without seeing are more blessed. Still, it is not easy to spend a whole week among people who have seen the Lord when you have not. Thomas showed strong will. Jesus answered that will by showing himself to Thomas.

Jesus shows himself to those who already love him, like Mary Magdalene, or those who go to the tomb, or those who listen to the witnesses, and finally to the Church where faith comes together. Jesus does not go alone to Thomas, and he does not go to those who killed him to prove the resurrection. He lets those who do not believe remain as they are. If you want to become warm, you go where it is warm. If you want to believe, you stay where faith is alive.

I met Federico at a community called Cenacolo, a place for people with drug and alcohol addiction. He entered because his mother forced him, planning to stay only three months. But when I met him, he had already lived there for three years. In that community, senior members even follow others to the bathroom to help them stay clean. At first, he hated them. But after some months, when he knelt together with them in church, he felt a deep peace for the first time in his life. He had never knelt during Mass before. When he joined himself to the faith of the community, the Lord appeared to him as peace.

Jesus is present in the community of believers. Today, Jesus repeats exactly what Thomas said, even though Jesus was not visibly there when Thomas said it. This shows that Jesus was with them all along.

In The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, there is a story about an alcoholic named John. After injuring his son while driving drunk, John attended Alcoholics Anonymous for 13 months and stopped drinking. Later, he thought he could do it alone and stayed sober for two years. But after his mother died, he fell back into addiction and almost lost his son again.

John then returned to the community and said this:
“I started going to meetings again. I gave up the idea that I could control myself alone. I realized I needed a higher power. If I do not accept my weakness, I will not accept help. I am still an atheist, but I tried believing that there is something stronger than me. That belief helped me. I do not know if it is God or something else, but I know that it helped me stay sober for seven years.”

Every community has a belief that keeps it alive. When someone enters that community, they naturally take in that belief. AA helps people believe in a higher power because change needs faith. When people stay in a believing community, their faith does not easily fade, and they can escape even strong addiction. Faith lives and grows more fully inside a community.

A researcher named Lee Ann Kaskutas says:
“When people attend AA meetings, they look around and think, ‘If this worked for them, maybe it can work for me too.’ Sharing experiences together is powerful. When people are alone, they doubt change. But a community weakens that doubt. In short, community creates faith.”

Jesus gathered faith in the resurrection inside the Church. Even though today we cannot always gather freely, we still live as members of the Church through TV, YouTube, or shared writings. The Eucharist is precious, but the community that lives by that faith is also precious. We have grown in faith inside this community, often without noticing it. We must remember that Jesus is not among those who do not believe, but among even two or three who already believe. (Rev Samyong)

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Sharing:

1. Let us share a word or phrase from today’s message that touched our hearts.

2. Reflect on this sentence:
“Jesus let those who do not believe remain as they are. If you want to become warm, you go where it is warm. If you want to believe, you stay where faith is alive”
Am I spending time in fellowship with people who truly believe, or mainly with people who only feel that they believe?
Let us share what kind of attitude people of faith have in their daily spiritual life.

3. Let us reflect on our own faith.
Is my faith one that goes beyond reason, or is it more like Thomas’s faith, based mainly on logic and proof?
If I have ever experienced faith that goes beyond reason—faith that believes without seeing—let us share when and how that experience came to me.

4. Resolution:
Based on today’s Word, let us share what kind of life we are called to live from now on.