(Second Sunday of Easter (C): This homily was given on April 19, 1998 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read John 20: 19-31.)

"Theoretical and practical unbelievers."

Some of you may have heard this story:

One day a woman was sitting in the passenger section of an airplane, quietly reading her Bible. The man sitting next to her saw what she was doing, and he snickered. He said, "You don’t really believe all that stuff in there do you?—the parting of the Red Sea, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, the Resurrection of Jesus—you can’t possibly take all that seriously."

She said, "Yes, I do. If it’s in the Bible, I believe it."

He said, "What about that guy who was swallowed by that whale? You think that actually happened?

She replied, "You mean Jonah. Yes, I believe that happened—he spent three days and three nights in the belly of a whale."

The man said, "That’s pure foolishness. How could anyone survive for that long inside a whale’s stomach?"

The lady responded, "To be perfectly honest, I don’t know. I guess when I get to heaven, I’ll ask Jonah."

The man replied sarcastically, "And what if he isn’t in heaven?"

The lady answered, "Then you can ask him!"

In this world, there are two kinds of unbelievers: "theoretical unbelievers" and "practical unbelievers." The man in this story was a theoretical unbeliever. In other words, in his mind and heart, he did not accept the truth of God’s word, and he acted accordingly. Thomas the apostle, on the very first Easter Sunday, was also a theoretical unbeliever. As we heard a few moments ago in our gospel text from John 20, Thomas was not present on Easter Sunday night when Jesus first appeared to the other disciples in the upper room. For the next six days they kept telling him, "We have seen the Lord!" What was Thomas’ response? He said, "I’ll never believe it without probing the nail-prints in his hands, without putting my finger in the nail-marks and my hand into his side." In his mind and heart, he did not accept the truth that the other apostles were telling him about the Resurrected Lord. That made him a theoretical unbeliever. (Saul of Tarsus, by the way, was also this kind of unbeliever before Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Christians at the time were saying, "Jesus Christ is the Son of God, risen from the dead!" Saul said, "I do not believe that," and he acted accordingly: he threw Christians into jail; he stood by approvingly while St. Stephen was stoned to death.)

Now there is one thing you have to say in favor of theoretical unbelievers: THEY ARE HONEST! They are intellectually honest people. Like the man on the airplane--and Thomas--and Saul of Tarsus: they don’t believe, and they are happy to tell you so in no uncertain terms!

This means that there’s often more hope for converting a theoretical unbeliever than there is for converting the other kind of unbeliever I mentioned a few moments ago. That’s because theoretical unbelievers CALL themselves unbelievers, practical unbelievers do not! Practical unbelievers are people who will say they believe, BUT THEN SPEAK AND ACT AS IF THEY DON’T! In other words, they will identify themselves with a religious title, and then, on a practical level, they will deny their faith. Baptized Catholics, for example, who are practical unbelievers, will often use expressions like these: "I am a Catholic, but . . . "; "I’m Catholic, but I don’t accept everything the Church teaches. . . . "; "That’s just the Catholic Church’s opinion . . . "—and on and on the litany goes.

A parishioner told me an interesting story the other day. He said, "Fr. Ray, I have a friend at work who is a professed atheist. He went to a Catholic wedding a while ago with some members of his family who are baptized Catholics. They all encouraged him to go to Communion during the liturgy! My friend refused. He later told me how upset he was that Catholics would encourage an atheist to go up for Communion! He said, ‘They know I don’t believe that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ; why would they tell me to go up and receive?’"

I would say, "Because they are practical unbelievers. They call themselves Catholics—implying that they believe and profess ALL that the Catholic Church believes and professes to be revealed by God—and then they deny one of the basic tenets of the faith, which states that under ordinary circumstances the Eucharist is only for baptized Catholics!!!" (President Clinton, please take note!!!)

I dare say: if I ever spoke to those Catholics and called them "practical unbelievers", they would be greatly offended! They would say, "How dare you? We’re believers!" Which is why I would much rather try to evangelize the atheist! As a theoretical unbeliever, the atheist would be happy to tell my exactly why he doesn’t believe. Then if somehow, by the grace of God, I could address those issues for him, he might open his heart to faith. But the practical unbelievers wouldn’t be willing to admit their lack of faith, so they would tune me out before I even began to speak! Evangelizing them would be much more difficult!

Notice what happened to the theoretical unbeliever in today’s gospel--Thomas the apostle. On Easter Sunday night he clearly and honestly expressed his reasons for not believing. In effect, he said, "Look, gentlemen--I haven’t experienced the Risen Jesus with my own senses, therefore I don’t believe what you’re telling me about him. Period." A week later, those objections were addressed by Jesus—personally—and Thomas immediately responded by saying, "My Lord and my God!" The moment his concerns were dealt with, he became a theoretical believer—as well as a practical believer. He not only began to profess his faith in the Risen Christ verbally; he also began to live it on a practical level. Tradition tells us that after he professed his faith in the Risen Jesus, Thomas went to Mesopotamia and India. There he preached the gospel, lived the Christian life, and died a MARTYR! So strong was his faith that he was willing to die for it!