The 1st Gospel Reading (Matthew 28:16-20)

Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Doubt is something remarkably tenacious within man’s soul. It has no regard for anything and follows its own rules, rules which sin has fragmented. It does not have direct knowledge of Genesis, of the human soul. Man lost true knowledge of everything, for he became bereft of the integrity of his soul. Sin shattered the soul, the clear mirror of God’s perfection. Recognition of Truth through faith is the restoration of our original, all-encompassing, knowledge. Faith is the restoration of the human soul and of its higher knowledge. But the broken soul, used to apprehending everything in tiny bits, used to feeding on crumbs, reacts abnormally to the demand to renounce its baser life, and the so-called “rational” knowledge, for the higher life – the Christian Faith. Yet God’s plan requires that man renounce himself, renounce the baser life (which he possesses merely as a consequence of the fall into sin), and freely accept the new world order established by the Gospels.

The foundation of this new higher order of life is faith, which imparts to man that higher knowledge that man seeks after in vain using his old mind “…ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth…” (II Timothy 3:7). The Apostles do not believe... After everything that has happened, the Apostles doubt! They harbor doubt – after already having believed all, already having left everything behind, after having made the journey to Galilee… This is the nature of original sin in man’s soul – the human soul’s vacillation and suffering when separated from God and cast out of Paradise! The Resurrection Gospels speak not only of man’s great faith, but also of his great doubts.

The Apostles’ faith is the most profound depth of faith, and their doubt is the very pinnacle of doubt. The Crucified and Resurrected God had already witnessed them both in mankind. The one and the other have gone by. Our faith is often so little and so weak, our doubt always so pitiful and insignificant. With all their doubts, the Apostles [nonetheless] redeemed us from doubt. Christ rose from the dead, and at the coming resurrection of the world will glorify all those who come to believe that not only was it possible, but that it could have been no other way.

Today, looking upon the external life of the world around us, and hearing above that life the Gospel of the Resurrection of Christ, it is mad and inconceivable not to believe in the Resurrection. What is the world without Christ’s Resurrection? A pointless and sad web of stupid suffering and dying in cold empty space. No raving of human unbelief and doubt has the power to bring us to belief in an empty sky and a transitory world. The structure of the world without the meaning of the Gospels is a yawning pit of non-existence. To not believe in Christ’s Resurrection is impossible. It is the restoration of all that had fallen away, the return of errant, prodigal humanity to the Home of the world and to the joy of the universal Father. Such happiness lies in confessing that belief, happiness which could not exist were that belief not founded in Truth.