What Dose Twiztid Mean

The Patience of Christ to love us and make us

in our world there is a skeptical consciousness, inertia against the good and true.
We are almost tired of inviting others to the possibility of new life. But today
(MC 8: the Bethsaida blind) Christ tells us that He is tired and has persisted despite the ungrateful stop to which we submit it, the ungrateful rejection of thanks from the opportunities that it offers.
Then his work of salvation, though with difficulty, progressive stages of lighting our faces in our expectation of a definitive abandonment.

Culture

SECULARITY '/ John Waters as the' incredulous "St. Thomas teaches us to return Christians

John Waters

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

I often think that St. Thomas, the one called "faithless" does not deserve the bad reputation that comes with it. If I was asked a boy, when I heard the stories of the Gospel constantly with their interpretations, I do not think I would have put far from Judas Thomas the list of bad guys. But is it right?
Doubting Thomas was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, also known as Didymus, which in greek means "twin," as Thomas in Hebrew. The term "unbeliever" was given following his initial refusal to believe that Christ was resurrected from the dead, until he saw the wounds.

The Gospel of John tells us that after the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to some disciples when Thomas was not present. John says (20:25): "They told him then the other apostles, 'We have seen the Lord' But he said to them: 'If you do not see in his hands the marks of the nails and put my finger in the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I do not believe it'. "
Eight days later, Jesus appeared to His disciples, and this time there was also Thomas, "Jesus came, the doors were locked, and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you' Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here and see my hands, put out your hand and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing' Thomas replied: 'My Lord and my God ' Then Jesus said to him: 'Because you have seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe' "(John 20.26-29).

Jesus' words are usually interpreted as a sort of condemnation for those who need evidence to believe. However, a closer reading, I realized that Jesus is not contemptuous Thomas as it thought. In reality, he is very kind and patient, allowing Thomas to examine His wounds and saying it's good that I now believe, while affirming the goodness of those who believe without seeing, calling them "blessed", but does not say that Thomas is the less.
The distinction that Jesus makes is between those who want evidence, and who do not, but between those who have personally seen and who has not seen in this second category includes almost all Christians lived so far, including all of us who live now .

Upon reflection, I do not think Jesus would say that there is greater value if we believe without evidence, much less that you would attach more value to a belief not based on evidence, but that would distinguish between two different types of evidence: that given by eyes and that based on credible witnesses.
If faith is based on mere sentiment or on a superficial concept of obedience, it becomes less robust and more susceptible to skepticism. The best form of faith is that which freely explores the entire field of the doubt, considering all available evidence, as did Thomas.

The faith of Christians today is certainly not ignorant of the evidence. We have the hard evidence of the reality, the evidence of our existence and of its mysterious nature, the evidence of the response of less consideration than we can give: to wonder "what is". We also have evidence of the Gospels and of the hundreds of testimonies, containing their stories, consciously or not, we weighed our reason since childhood, evaluating their plausibility in the same way Doubting Thomas faced the evidence before him. Having given voice to the deep uncertainties of the seed, has become a witness for us more important than many others.

many other references in the Gospels we learn that Thomas, on several occasions, has proved one of the most determined among the apostles, courageous and faithful. When others tried to keep Jesus from returning to Bethany to raise Lazarus, as the inhabitants of that city had tried to stone him (John 11:8), Thomas bursts out: "Let us also go to die with Him" \u200b\u200b(John 11:16). And it is he who puts Jesus in one of the most famous questions of the Gospel: "Lord we do not know where to go, how can we know the way?". Jesus replied: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me. " (John 14.5-6).

In this modern age like no other in disbelief, in which a false form of reason has cut off our culture the meaning of much that is obvious, the importance of the doubting Thomas is likely to be elected by patron of today's culture, marked by secularism and its relativism, its concept of reason and its reduced tendency to pessimism as a first response to reality. It is the "twin" the modern Christian, my sister .. and perhaps ... even your own?
"It is a St. Thomas" is a phrase used in our culture to describe someone who refuses to believe direct evidence, physical, personal, and in this sense we can say that fully encompasses the position of the culture. In fact, a reasonable skepticism is not an unfortunate trait in a person intelligent. As the Pope continues to remind us, the understanding of faith has also become understanding of reality. There is nothing to fear from the search for a test: the problem is how we come to evaluate this test and what we choose to do with it.

not I believe that Jesus, by His response to Thomas, wants to invite us to reduce this desire for evidence in favor of a moralistic blind adherence to the idea that believing in itself is preferable to a rigorous approach in the search for truth. At most, may have wished to suggest that rather than suspend our openness to believe, is more useful for us to suspend our skepticism until we have considered all aspects and not only what our eyes tell us. If something was convicted was quell'empirismo that demands the total provability to justify the acceptance of a proposal.
why I wonder if we have not been unfair to the doubting Thomas. Perhaps, in his skepticism, he gave us a witness to which we adhere in a more concrete and, with its insistence on evidence, we proposed an example to follow and a story in which skepticism has been dissolved by an event, evidenced by the Gospel of John, also allows us to believe without "seeing" yourself.

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