FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners:
Last Sunday’s Gospel recounted Our Lord’s visit to the disciples in the Upper Room after His Resurrection according to St. John. As you know, Our Lord appeared to the disciples at least twice in the Upper Room. (cf. Jn 20:19-31) The first time, on the evening of the same day that He rose from the dead, St. Thomas was not among the disciples. When told that Jesus had risen from the dead, Thomas did not believe at first. From then on, he has suffered the ignominy of being labeled “doubting Thomas”. Thomas said to his brother apostles: “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.” (Jn 20:25b) When Jesus appeared a second time in the Upper Room, eight days later, He invited Thomas to touch his wounds. On this second occasion, Thomas was convinced that Our Lord had indeed risen from the dead and showed his belief by exclaiming and proclaiming: “My Lord and my God!”
As I often do, I choose a sacred image for the front of the bulletin that corresponds to one of the Sunday readings, usually to the Gospel. For last Sunday’s bulletin, I chose the painting by Bernardo Strozzi entitled “Doubting Thomas”. The painting depicts Jesus showing Thomas His wounds. In order for Our Lord to be able to reveal the wound in His side, He needed to uncover his upper body. In the painting, one can see the front of Our Lord’s upper torso. For our live-stream Masses on our “St Mary’s Vacaville” YouTube channel, Yenni Cadenas, our main livestream coordinator, usually uses the same image from the bulletin for the “thumbnail” image on our livestream video. The “thumbnail” is the image that you see when you first see the video on the computer screen. Unfortunately, the thumbnail was removed, for a time, by YouTube. Apparently, YouTube has a policy of blocking images that are deemed inappropriate. While, I am glad that YouTube blocks images that are obscene, violent or graphic, I thought it was ironic that an image of Our Lord’s naked chest was blocked from our YouTube channel.
As Catholic Christians, we know and understand that the Son came into the world as a Child in his “birthday” suit, just like everyone else. And, yes, Jesus was hung on a cross, without any covering at all or with very little covering. We do not shy away from depicting Our Lord’s “corpus” or Body on the cross. Seeing his battered Body reminds us that not everything is as it should be. It reminds us that we had a part in putting Him there. It reminds us of God’s profound love for us. Jesus loved his Body very much. After all, it was begotten by the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit and formed in the womb of His blessed Mother. With His hands, feet,
eyes, mouth, ears, mind, heart and everything, Jesus carried out His mission of revealing His Father to us and of dying on the Cross for us. For all these reasons, we give thanks to God for His Son’s Body and for the Blood he shed for our salvation.
Likewise, the respect and honor we have for Christ’s Body moves us to respect and honor all the more the human body. We understand that our bodies ultimately to do not belong to us. They belong to God. God gives us bodies for His greater honor and glory. God gave us bodies so that we could use our hands, feet, arms, minds and every part of our bodies to be His Son’s instruments in the world. As gifts from God, we understand that we cannot just do whatever we feel like with our bodies. We defend and protect the bodies of the youngest among us in the wombs of their mothers and care for the bodies of the oldest among us, and for bodies of every one of all ages, for that matter. Along with a deep respect for the Body of Jesus and our own body, we understand and appreciate that we need a strong spirit and soul to nurture our bodies. Just like a plant needs water to grow, we need God’s grace to thrive. I like to think that when St. Thomas exclaimed “My Lord and my God!” all of these truths came together for him.
A most blessed Easter season to you all!
In the Resurrected Lord,
Father Berg
