April 12, 2021
Yesterday’s gospel shared the familiar story of “Doubting Thomas” from John 20:19-31. The following is a homily I delivered on that same gospel last year (2020).
I hope you don’t mind, but today’s homily is based on a “dumb question.” I listened to a podcast earlier this week. The podcast is called, All Set for Sunday and is geared toward parents of young children. It offers such parents an opportunity to reflect on the readings for the upcoming Sunday ahead of time, understanding that their babies and toddlers may draw their attention elsewhere during Mass. The podcast includes back and forth informal discussion between the two hosts and questions directed to a guest priest. The two young men acting as the hosts are friends of mine and have asked me to listen to several trial episodes and offer feedback so they can do some fine-tuning prior to the official launch of the podcast.
Back to the dumb question. During the course of the podcast, Jeff asked Fr. Tim why the gospel tells us that Thomas was also called Didymus. The gospel reads: Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
Jeff prefaced the question by saying it was dumb, Fr. Tim acknowledged it was dumb, and then after a quick laugh they moved on, leaving the dumb question unanswered.
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