Daily Archives: April 10, 2026

Recognition

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Mary Magdalene did not recognize Jesus in the garden. The folks walking to Emmaus did not recognize Him on the road. In today’s gospel the apostles don’t recognize Jesus. There seems to be a lot of that going around.

Perhaps the seashore encounter is different. The apostles apparently have been fishing all night; they’re tired. And besides, they were fishing rather than waiting for his appearance. Their preoccupation with work and grief likely hindered their perception. Mary Magdalene was focused on finding Jesus’ body not meeting Jesus. The travelers on the road were focused on catching the stranger up on the latest news.

Back to our gospel…add to all that, they are about 100 yards off shore. It’s early morning and it isn’t the best light. Maybe Jesus is backlit with the sunrise. It all adds up making it difficult to recognize a person in the dim, early morning light. 

It could be that, similar to the road to Emmaus, their eyes may have been kept from recognizing him until he revealed himself through action. Then the breaking of the bread; now, the miraculous catch of fish. Mary did not recognize Jesus until He spoke aloud.

What might keep us from failing to recognize Jesus in our lives? Let me provide you a menu of options and you can check off the ones that apply to you:

Spiritual and Internal Factors such as a hard heart/pride can cause one to refuse revealed truth, Church teaching and more. This can blind individuals to the very nature of Jesus and thus His presence. A lack of spiritual perspective can obfuscate the divine, particularly when looking for Jesus in the needy. And there is the fear of change as when one realizes that following Jesus requires significant life changes 

Placing worldly pursuits, material possessions, and daily responsibilities above spiritual growth can crowd out recognition of Jesus.

Disbelief and misconceptions such as the demand for intellectual proof can block spiritual recognition. Another is being deceived by false doctrines, poor catechists or mistakenly believing they are already right with God. And there is the truly unfortunate: negative perceptions of Christian behavior or church hypocrisy can cause people to reject the message of Jesus.

Similar to the disciples’ experience, overwhelming sorrow or trauma can hinder the ability to recognize Jesus’ presence in daily life. Maybe it is as simple having expectations of how Jesus should appear or work, rather than seeing how he actually moves, can lead to missing Him.

And we are left with the question: how do you recognize Jesus in our life? How do you know you’ve not already failed to recognize Him?

Image credit: Meal of Our Lord and the Apostles | James Tissot, ~1880 | Brooklyn Museum of Art | PD-US

Thomas

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This coming weekend we celebrate the 2nd Sunday of Easter in Lectionary Cycle A. Although many translations include “doubt” in v. 27 — and thus lead to the phrase “Doubting Thomas,” but there is no Greek word for “doubt” in the verse. The phrase do not be unbelieving, but believe contrasts apistos and pistos — the only occurrence of both these words in John. Simply put, the word does not mean “doubt” and Greek does not lack the equivalent words: diakrinomai, dialogismos, distazō, dipsychos, aporeō, and aporia.  Lowe and Nida (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains) give three definitions for the adjective – pistos.

  • pertaining to trusting — one who trusts in, trusting
  • pertaining to being trusted — faithful, trustworthy, dependable, reliable
  • pertaining to being sure, with the implication of being fully trustworthy — sure

Thus apistos would be “not having trust or faith or certainty.”

Questioning God is an aspect of faith. If one is asking God questions or seeking answers from God, there is an intrinsic faith present.  To ask the question implies a fundamental trust that if an answer is given that it will be correct. Similarly, to ask the question can point to a desire to be sure. All this points to a “becoming” (a valid translation of the verb being used). Thomas seems to be at a crossroads in his life. What will he become? What adjective will describe him: trusting or not, faithful or not, certain or not?

John Westerhoff III in his book Will Our Children Have Faith offers a model of becoming in faith that may shed some light on Thomas’ evolving faith (found in Brian Stoffregen’s text)

  1. EXPERIENCED FAITH (preschool and early childhood) — imitating actions, e.g., a child praying the Lord’s Prayer without understanding the meaning of all the words — “This is what we do. This is how we act.”
  2. AFFILIATIVE FAITH (childhood and early adolescent years) — belonging to a group, which still centers on imitating what the group does — “This is what we believe and do. This is our group/church.”
  3. SEARCHING FAITH (late adolescence, young adult) — asking questions, “Is this what I believe?” Thomas is our example of this. He will not blindly accept what others have said, but needs to find certainty for himself. This stage of faith is adding the “head” to the “heart” of the earlier stages. This is a point at which many young adults drop-out as well as when many are recruited to causes and cults
  4.  OWNED FAITH (early adulthood) — this stage comes only through the searching stage. After exploring the question, “Is this what I believe?” one, hopefully, discovers a Christian answer that declares: “This is what I believe.”

The Thomas scene ends with an “owned faith” and a personal confession: “My Lord and my God” — a confession we don’t hear from any of the other disciples who did not go through the same questioning as Thomas. However, this is the strong, personal faith that one witnesses to and one is willing to die for.

Image credit: The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), c. 1602 | Public Domain