This Is Our Family History
There is something fascinating about learning where we come from.
People spend hours researching family trees, finding old photographs, discovering relatives they never knew about, and learning the stories that eventually led to their own lives.
There is something meaningful about realizing: This is how I got here.
The Easter season gives us an opportunity to do something similar with the Church.
The Acts of the Apostles is, in a sense, our family history.
It tells us what happened after the Resurrection: how the Holy Spirit worked through the apostles, how the Gospel spread, and how the earliest Christian communities began to take shape.
And today’s first reading gives us a beautiful glimpse:
“They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.”
Two thousand years later, there is something wonderfully familiar about that.
We still gather.
We still listen to the teaching handed down from the apostles.
We still pray together.
We still break the bread.
The Church has grown across centuries, continents, languages, and cultures, but we are part of the same story.
These are our spiritual ancestors.
Their history is our history.
The Door Was Locked
Then the Gospel takes us back to the evening of Easter Sunday.
The disciples are together behind locked doors.
They are afraid.
And Jesus comes into their midst.
He does not begin by interrogating them.
He does not demand explanations for why they ran away.
He does not start with Peter’s denial or their failures during His Passion.
His first words are:
“Peace be with you.”
Then He shows them His hands and His side.
The risen Christ comes into a room filled with fear and brings peace.
He breathes the Holy Spirit upon them and immediately speaks about forgiveness.
That matters.
The wounds are still there.
The failure really happened.
But Christ comes bearing mercy.
When Thomas Misses It
One person is not in the room.
Thomas.
We are not told why.
When he returns, the others tell him the extraordinary news:
“We have seen the Lord.”
And Thomas refuses to believe without seeing for himself.
It is easy to judge him.
But perhaps Thomas gives us something important.
Eight days later, the disciples are gathered again, and this time Thomas is with them.
Jesus comes.
Again:
“Peace be with you.”
Then He turns directly to Thomas.
Jesus knows exactly what Thomas has said. He knows what Thomas needs.
And He invites him closer.
See My hands.
Bring your hand to My side.
Do not be unbelieving, but believe.
The Gospel does not tell us that Thomas actually touches the wounds.
It tells us his response:
“My Lord and my God!”
His doubt becomes one of the clearest professions of faith in the Gospel.
Thomas encounters not an angry Jesus demanding an explanation, but the risen Christ who meets him personally in his doubt.
Blessed Are Those Who Have Not Seen
Most of us will never stand where Thomas stood.
We were not in that locked room.
We did not run to the empty tomb with Peter and John.
We did not place our hands near Christ’s wounds.
And Jesus speaks directly to us:
“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
We encounter Him differently.
We hear His Word.
We receive the faith handed down by the apostles.
We gather with the Church.
And most intimately, we encounter Him in the Eucharist.
When we approach and hear “The Body of Christ,” we answer:
“Amen.”
That little word is an act of faith.
Yes. I believe.
The same risen Christ who stood before Thomas gives Himself to us.
Mercy From His Wounds
It is fitting that this Gospel is proclaimed on Divine Mercy Sunday.
The risen Jesus shows the disciples His wounds.
The wounds are not erased by the Resurrection.
Instead, they become signs of the love that conquered death.
The Divine Mercy image gives us a similar picture: Christ with rays flowing from His heart, recalling the blood and water that flowed from His pierced side.
And beneath Him is the simple prayer:
Jesus, I trust in You.
That may be one of the most important prayers we can learn.
Because faith does not mean never having questions.
Thomas had questions.
Faith means bringing those questions to Jesus and allowing Him to meet us there.
His mercy is greater than our fear.
Greater than our doubt.
Greater than our failure.
Greater than the locked doors we hide behind.
For Moms
Families have histories.
Some stories we tell proudly.
Others are complicated.
There are beautiful traditions we want to hand on, and patterns we hope will stop with us.
The Church is a family too.
And one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is the sense that Catholicism did not begin with us.
They belong to something much bigger.
The prayers we teach them have been prayed by generations before them.
The Eucharist we receive connects us to the earliest Christians who gathered for “the breaking of bread.”
And the Jesus they meet is the same Jesus who walked into a locked room full of frightened disciples and said:
“Peace be with you.”
Our children will have questions.
They may even have doubts.
Thomas reminds us not to panic.
Bring them back to Jesus.
He is not frightened by an honest question.
His response is always an invitation to come closer.
Questions to Sit With
- Do I think of the history of the Church as part of my own family story?
- Is there a question, doubt, or fear that I need to bring honestly to Jesus instead of hiding from Him?
- When I receive the Eucharist and say “Amen,” do I recognize the act of faith I am making?
Family Practice
Tell your children one piece of your family’s Catholic story this week.
It might be about a grandparent’s faith, a sacrament you remember, a church your family attended, or how your own faith became important to you.
Then remind them:
“You are part of this story too.”
End together with one simple prayer:
Jesus, I trust in You.