Doubts in Faith: A Beautiful Sunday Mass Sermon

John 20:24-31 (New International Version)
Jesus Appears to Thomas
 24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
      But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
 26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
 28Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
 29Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
 30Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may[a] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

In today’s mass, the passage was about Thomas. Most sermons I’ve heard about this passage took on Thomas as the antagonist. His doubt was despised and considered a sin. That’s why I decided to write the sermon I heard today. It took on a wholly different take.

The priest started the sermon by mentioning Mother Theresa.
A few months back, a book about her came out. The book contained her personal letters sent to her spiritual guide. They showed that despite her image as a holy-spiritual person, she felt detached from God. God was nowhere to be found. She had doubts.
The matter sparked a controversy which ended in a public debate.
Was she really a holy person? Was she even spiritual?

The priest said that during the whole debacle, he was ‘asleep’.  He didn’t care. He didn’t know what the fuss was about.

He explained his statements in an analogy.
The priest liked to hike on mountains. In every hiking, he could see how from a distance, the mountain looked beautiful. The sight was clear, the shapes were all well-defined.
But, the moment he got on it, he couldn’t see what he had seen before. The shapes disappeared, and the mountain was nowhere to be seen. Its beauty was gone.

That's also what happened with Mother Theresa, he said. She was so close to Him, that she couldn’t see Him.

He continued by saying these beautiful words.

“The deeper the faith, the more it has doubts.

Because in the end, a faith without doubts is a faith without a fight.”

He then told the congregation that how as a priest, a lot of people consulted him on a specific problem. They too had doubts, and they were in pain.
They asked him, “What should we do?”
To this, the priest replied, “Be free to doubt. Doubt everything. Does God really exist? Who is Jesus? Is there any point in any of this?”
So they said again, "But because of it, we can’t even pray in church anymore.”
“Who asked you to pray? Just sit there and listen.”
He went on with a question. “Do you long for God? Do you miss Him?”
“Yes, we do,” they answered.
“Then keep the longing. Doubt Him and love Him by keeping the longing. Love Him by longing Him in the darkness and pain of doubts. In the end, I pray you may be granted with what Thomas was granted; the ability to say, ‘AHA.. My Lord and my God..’.”

I almost cried during the sermon.

After that, I went through the rest of the procession in a different feeling. It turned out it was OK to doubt. Even all the pain that came with it was acknowledged. It was a spiritual warmth for me.
And suddenly out of nowhere, God is felt and not just believed.