Christ meets us in our doubts

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Chaplain

Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)

Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com

THE story of the doubting Thomas brings to light the phenomenon about doubts in our Christian faith. We should not be surprised by it. We know that doubts about our faith can easily rise in our mind for a number of reasons.

Why do we doubt sometimes? Because our capacity to know things well is hampered by a number of limitations and factors. We tend to depend too much on our senses, we can commit mistakes in our reasoning, we can have biases that color the way we see things, we are dealing with things spiritual and supernatural that are beyond our natural powers of knowing, etc.

We cannot deny that we can have some doubts, for example, about who Christ is and what he is to us. These days in the world in general, we can see strong evidence of a culture of skepticism, agnosticism, religious indifferentism, if not, outright atheism.

This should come as no surprise to us because even during the time of Christ, many of the supposedly religious leaders were skeptical of him and were often suspicious of him, always trying to find fault in him.

The quick reason for that phenomenon is that the person of Christ is largely shrouded by mysteries that are difficult if not impossible for us to understand fully. That he is both God and man, that he was brought to earth through a virgin birth, are just some of the mysteries many people do not even bother to consider.

There are, of course, many other reasons. Many people are lazy and do not bother to know Christ, let alone, study the gospels. And even the Bible is considered by many people as a mere collection of myths and legends. And we can go on and on with reasons for the lack of interest in Christ.

But what we can do is first of all really to pray, to humble ourselves, realizing that the question about Christ is a matter of faith which is a supernatural gift that can only be appreciated by us if we are humble enough to accept and correspond to that gift. Of course, Christ can strike a most powerful grace to convert a person instantly into a man of faith, much like what happened to St. Paul also.

What we should do is to be humble to acknowledge these limitations and be guarded against them. Specifically, we should be humble enough to ask God for that gift of faith which he is all too willing to give us. And from there, we should just have to make many acts of faith in God and in things related to him, even as we study the doctrine of our faith, trying to assimilate them in our life. 

This way we would be imitating the attitude of many of the Biblical characters, especially like Our Lady who, in spite of not fully understanding how she was going to be the Mother of God, simply said “Be it done to me according to your word.”

But let’s remember that Christ is not scandalized by our doubts. He may reproach us for them, but he will not remain indifferent to that wounded condition of ours. Like in the case of St. Thomas, Christ would be willing to clarify them for us in his own mysterious ways.

In short, our doubts should spur us some more to get closer to God rather than to run away from him. That’s why we need to be humble.