This disposition of St. Thomas was very wrong. He ought to have believed without hesitation. He had seen our Lord work miracles without number; he had seen Him give sight to the blind, even those blind from birth; make the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak; he had seen Him raise the dead to life, raise Lazarus after being dead and buried already four days. He knew that our Lord had predicted His resurrection. He ought to have believed, and he sinned in not believing. He was obstinate in unbelief, refusing to credit the testimony of his companions, whom he knew to be honest and trustworthy.

Our Lord in the kindness of His heart forgave him, and made him put his finger into the print of the nails and into the wound in His side to convince him, and also to convince us by His testimony of the reality of His resurrection. But at the same time He rebuked him, and taught us all a grand lesson. He said: "Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed; blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”

We have the faith on the testimony of the apostles and disciples who recorded it in the Gospels, and who sealed their testimony in their own blood.

We have the testimony of all the disciples who repeatedly saw our Lord after His resurrection, sometimes a great number of them, over five hundred at once.

We have the testimony of the Catholic Church; of all those millions on millions who have lived from that day to this; of the wonderful providence of God and His care of His Church until now.

This ought to be enough. This ought to be enough to make us say our act of faith, "O my God, I believe whatever Thy Holy Church proposes to my belief, because Thou hast revealed it to her. Thou who canst neither deceive nor be deceived."

This is the age of unbelief. Very great numbers of men are occupied in trying to undermine the faith. The newspapers are full of infidel objections. The press is teeming with works written expressly to destroy the faith. The flimsiest reasons are brought forward with a bold face as if they were unanswerable. The very fact that the things of God and religion are so high and incomprehensible is brought forward as the principal reason why they are not to be believed.

We have believed once for all, on the truest and most solid evidence. Our business now is to "live by faith." To put in practice the precepts of our faith, and to follow the example of the Author and Finisher of our faith, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We are not of those who are to be "beat about by every wind of doctrine.” We are not to be moved by the vain babblings of men, who are wise in their own conceit and think they know everything, though they know very little after all. We will not imitate St. Thomas in his unbelief, and refuse to believe the wonderful things of God because they are so high and wonderful, but imitate him when in wonder and admiration he cried, "My Lord and my God." Believing in the testimony of God and His Church, and putting away all sceptical and imaginative doubts, we shall receive the blessing pronounced by our Lord: "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." (Low Sunday - Five minute Sermons by the Paulist Fathers)

It seems to me that this feast is a great day for sinners - meaning, of course, repentant sinners. For look at the facts? Who is the saint of the Resurrection by excellence? Certainly dear Mary Magdalen, the type of all the penitent. She stood beneath the Cross when Jesus died, comforting Him and His Mother in that dreadful hour of His doom and of that Mother's woe. And when the dead corpse was lowered down, Mary Magdalen pressed His limbs and feet and hands to her bosom while our sorrowful Mother clasped His heart to her own and kissed His pallid face a thousand times. Mary Magdalen helped to lay Him in His grave. She watched then; when driven away by the soldiers she bought spices and came again to embalm Him. And whose words are those repeated to-day all round the world as the dawn greets the watching glances of the faithful. "They have taken away my Lord! I know not where they have laid Him"; and again the amazed and ecstatic exclamation when she saw Him in the garden: "Rabboni! Master."

What a great store of love, says St. Gregory the Great, was in that woman's heart, who, when even His disciples were gone away, could not tear herself from the grave of the Lord!

See, then, my brethren, the reward of the love which is in true sorrow for sin; it is given a singular kind of pre-eminence; it is selected above that of innocence and placed on guard at the post of honor to receive the first public greeting from the Immortal King of Glory, triumphant over sin for ever. I say public greeting, for doubtless Jesus visited and greeted His Mother in private first of all; but this is not written down for our edification, and Mary Magdalen's privilege is. Sinners need encouragement, and certainly they get it today in the honor paid to their glorious patron, to the woman who had many sins forgiven her because she loved much.

I say again that sinners need encouragement. In truth, there is no shame so deadly as that which conscious guilt brings to the human soul. There is no degradation like vice - in fact, there is none other but vice. Hence many sinners are met with who do not turn to God and who hold back from confession and communion because they are ashamed and afraid. It is not so much love of sin as want of confidence that now hinders them. They have felt the force of passion as the slave feels the whip of the slave-driver; or they have repented before and fallen again, and this fills them with distrust in themselves; or their surroundings are a constant source of temptation; or they have been so long away that the very process of reconciliation to God, the very practice of the simplest acts of religion, have grown strange to them. These, and other reasons, varying from mere timidity to utter despair, show the need of a strong word of encouragement to sinners. This is the day for giving sinners courage to repent. Oh! let every man and woman partake of Christ's courage today. All who are sinners, let them loath and detest their sins, and let them feel that if our Lord is with them they can conquer any passion, resist any temptation, and persevere to the end.

The Procession in the Streets of Jerusalem by Jacques Tissot

"Hosanna to the Son of David."-St. Matt. xxi. 9.

"Today, my dear brethren, we are reminded of that hour in the life of our Lord on earth in which He was receiving from the people of His own nation all the honor they could render Him. He then entered the chosen city of God in triumph over all who had opposed Him. Thousands surrounded Him, went before Him and followed after Him. They paved the road before Him with their own clothing and with the branches of trees, that they might thus make His entry into Jerusalem as glorious as possible.

In a few days, when He had been arrested by His enemies, where was this great crowd? Where were those who had cried out so fervently, "Hosanna to the Son of David"? But few could there be found. The rest had either deserted Him or joined in with the crowd that mocked Him even while He was dying on the Cross. Nearly all had abandoned Him in the day of His adversity. The first test of their faith in Him, the first trial that proved the strength of their love for Him, found them entirely wanting in that characteristic of true love, fidelity to the end.

Is it impossible for us to do as they did? No; it is not impossible, for many who are Catholics born and bred do the same thing now.

But who are these? They are those who fail to keep the Ten Commandments of God and the precepts and laws of the Church. Every Catholic who breaks the Commandments of God and refuses to obey the laws of the Church does worse than those did who deserted our Lord when He was condemned and crucified. With their lips they declare they are Catholics, and in this way cry out "Hosanna to the Son of David," but in their hearts and lives they live and associate with the enemies of Christ.

But why are these men worse than the others? Simply because they received the graces of Christ in their baptism, in their confirmation, and in their First Communion, as well as in their many Communions thereafter. In Communion they receive our Lord Himself, the Lord of eternal glory who is eternal life itself. These have been, in truth, members of the kingdom of heaven, but have cast themselves out by not keeping the Commandments of God, by not obeying the laws of the Church. Truly does the Scripture say of many of them: "He that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.” For dead many of them are apparently-dead eternally. They seem to be in the spiritual slumber of eternal death. They appear to be eternally judged; their eternal fate already sealed.

Why do I say this? Because nothing can move their hearts to return to God. Missions, sermons, exhortations, threatenings, warnings, counsels, the prayers and entreaties of fathers, mothers, kindred, and friends are all unheeded by them, are all in vain. Even the tears of their fathers and mothers, and the blushes of shame whenever they are alluded to by friends, have no effect upon them, none whatever. They will not return to God.

Poor souls! Remember that whatever excuse you make to yourselves, this is true, that those who keep the Commandments and the laws of the Church show they are the true friends of our Lord; those who do not keep these show to all in heaven and earth that they are His enemies. We have but one sure and positive test of our love for our Lord. The Ten Commandments and the laws of the Church constitute that test. All who really love Him keep this faithfully. "If you love Me," said our Lord, "keep My commandments." All who do not love Him break them and disregard them. God Himself is not their friend. They have no part in the triumphs of our Lord on this day. It is true they cry out with us "Hosanna to the Son of David," but in their lives they side with His enemies and crucify our Lord.

What, then, is to be done? Let those who are faithful profit by the terrible examples of these abandoned souls. Let them dread and tremble lest they also be brought into the same state by their increasing tepidity and neglect. Let them care to secure to our Lord a complete triumph in their own souls that He may rule there in time and eternity. "The kingdom of God is within you,” said our Lord, and the Christian soul is truly the throne of God. None but faithful or truly repentant souls can cry out today, in all sincerity, "Hosanna to the Son of David." Palm Sunday -Five-minute Sermons by the Paulist Fathers 1893

The Merchants chased out of the Temple, Tissot

“But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple." -St. John viii. 59.

"We gather from the Gospels that our Divine Saviour frequented the Jewish Temple. Whenever He came to Jerusalem, His first visit was to the Temple, and while He remained in the City of Sion most of His time was passed in the Temple. This, the great sanctuary of the Old Dispensation, was, without doubt, the true Temple of God, and our Blessed Lord loved its courts; for here alone was His Heavenly Father truly known and glorified among men. And, although the Old Law was soon to be superseded by the New, and the Temple and its sacrifices were to pass away for ever, yet the Divine Redeemer jealously guarded its honor to the last. He could not tolerate the least irreverence or profanation within its sacred precincts.

If you recollect, the only time that our meek and gentle Lord gave way to angry indignation, and acted with downright severity, was when He found the buyers and sellers in the Temple. Inflamed with holy zeal at the sight of such profanation, He at once turned upon the sacrilegious traffickers and drove them and their wares out of the Temple, using a scourge and saying: "Take these things hence, and make not the house of My Father a house of traffic." Nor did they stand on the order of their going, for they recognized in the indignant countenance and commanding presence of Jesus Christ the manifestation of Divine displeasure.

Now, the attitude of our Lord Jesus Christ towards the old Jewish Temple teaches us two very important lessons-first, to love the House of God and to frequent it; and second, to behave with the greatest reverence within its walls. Surely the Lord of the Temple did not need to honor it. Yet, behold, His attachment for it, how often He visited it, and how incensed He was against all who profaned it! And if the sanctuary of the Old Law was so sacred in the eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ, how much more so the sanctuaries of the New Law? Was it not said of Him that "zeal for God's house hath consumed Him?" And do we not find that those amongst us who have most of the Spirit of Christ imitate Him in this also? Good Christians love the House of God; they visit it often, and they are full of reverence for it. While, on the other hand, there is no more infallible sign of a coarse and tepid Christian spirit than irreverence in the Temple of God. People whom you see enter the church laughing and talking, have little or no sense of worship; they come rather for appearance' sake, like the Sadducees of old.