I used to think that the Apostles were lucky. They could see Christ, be with Him, and talk to Him. They had everything going for them. They heard His words. They saw His miracles. Obviously, they could see that He was God. This man walking and talking and eating with them, He perspired and even hiccupped. …??? This is God??? They saw people beat and crucify Him. He suffered from whips and beatings. He bled and stumbled and wept. This is God? This is the Lord of the Universe?

On second thought, maybe their plight was harder than ours. Their beliefs had to overcome their own perceptions. They didn’t have the benefit of two thousand years of dissection of history, of reviewing the words and actions of Christ, of realizing why things had to happen. They were not learned. They were fishermen. They knew how to fish, how to cast nets, how to repair those nets. They didn’t study theology, or philosophy. They didn’t spend years studying the teachings of others. They probably didn’t even understand the heavens and what information the stars had to offer. But, on Pentecost, that all changed. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and believed. Even Thomas, with all of his doubt and disbelief, falls on his knees and proclaims, “My Lord and my God.”

We skip ahead some two thousand years. Here we are, 2010 A.D. We have every conceivable form of information at our fingertips. We have the benefit of scholars that have poured over the Bible, and the actions of this Christ. We have theologians and philosophers, down through the years, interpreting and theorizing every action performed every sentence, every word that Jesus uttered. With all of this information, we must be in better circumstances than the Apostles. Right?

We know that Christ came to redeem us. We know that God sent His Son to show us how very much He loves us, His creations. We know that Christ saw the needs of mankind and so gave us Himself in the Eucharist. We know that life is to be lived with love for all the people we work and live with. Finally, we know that we should be striving to let people see Christ, in the way we conduct our lives.

With all of this information, and after all this time, life should be almost heavenly, here on earth. We know, however, this is not the case. We still don’t trust people. We don’t go out of our way to help people. We strive to obtain all the wrong things, it seems. No matter how much we have, we don’t seem to be satisfied. We are always longing for something else, something better. Clearly a road taken did not lead us to the happiness that was expected. With all of our studies, our knowledge, we still don’t have the happiness that we want. The Apostles lacked knowledge, and we have knowledge, of Christ, book knowledge. Christ does not reside in our brain. We cannot intellectualize and thus understand the Lord. Christ comes to our hearts. We must bring our hearts to Christ. We don’t really understand any better than the Apostles. They were confused, as we are, but they gave Him their hearts, their affections, their trust, their blind faith. And, they were rewarded with the Holy Spirit. It’s time we drop our sophistications, our pretenses and just blindly reach out to Him. His hand has been waiting for ours for all eternity.