The Gospel of the Second Sunday of Easter (Jn 20:19-31) incorporates two appearances by Jesus to His Apostles. His first, on Easter Sunday evening, is the institution of the sacrament of Penance, entrusting the ministry of forgiveness to His Apostles. The second, a week later, is when he confronts “doubting Thomas.” Thomas had been absent the previous week and refused to believe Jesus’ Resurrection without physically probing the alleged Christ’s wounds. A week later, Jesus invites him to do so. Thomas professes faith in Christ which, in turn, produces a beatitude applicable to us: “Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed.” Because, as Fr. David Stanley once wrote, the Bible makes clear: “‘Seeing is not believing.'” The Pharisees saw Lazarus raised — and it sealed their resolution to kill Jesus. Faith is God’s gift, not visual acuity.

Catholics have been raised with this image of “doubting Thomas.” It seems some might think that doubt is bad. Is it?

While the Gospels report that all the Apostles but John and Peter fled in the Garden of Gethsemane (and Peter’s staying behind did not necessarily redound to his credit), it is likely that at some point in his life Thomas had seen a victim of crucifixion. To see what was done to a human being before, upon, and after death on a cross would leave no one in doubt about the victim’s demise.

So, have you ever seen a ghost? Have you ever seen a risen person? Was it unreasonable for Thomas to have been doubtful?

We, as Catholics, embrace faith and reason. Traditional Catholic theology even admits that there are rational bases inclining us to make the act of faith. That was one of the reasons why St. Thomas Aquinas offered his “five proofs” from reason for God’s existence. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Genesis, is more than a First Cause, Ultimate Perfection, or Unmoved Mover. But those rational bases for accepting that there is a God inclines us also towards accepting the God of revelation.

Yes, blessed would it have been for Thomas to believe his apostolic brothers. We Catholics, after all, do that in accepting the witness of our faith, passed on to us by Scripture and Tradition over 2,000 years. But should we fault him? No.

Even Mary, who is morally perfect, asked how she might be a mother given that “I do not know man.” Assured it was God’s Will, she leaves the how to Him. That we might have such perfect faith is wonderful, but most of us — including Thomas — don’t.

I raise this question because I think we sometimes do jump to conclusions about peoples’ motivations. Take Jonah.

The Biblical Book of Jonah is very brief. It gives us no biography which, to some Biblical scholars, is unsurprising since they regard Jonah as “didactic fiction.” God tells Jonah to go and preach conversion to pagan Ninevah. Jonah doesn’t want to and so flees until God diverts his plans and drops him at Ninevah. Faced with a fait accompli, Jonah grudgingly preaches, only to find God’s Word effective (after all, prophets preached God’s word, not their own). That causes him to sulk even more.

The Polish writer Roman Brandstaetter wrote a short story based on the Book of Jonah. Brandstaetter (1906-1987) was born into an observant Jewish family and acquired fame in Polish-Jewish literary circles before World War II. Serving in Palestine during the War began his journey to Catholicism, which he never described as “conversion” as much as the “fulfillment” of his Judaism. As a Polish Catholic writer, Brandstaetter frequently brought the rich Jewish tradition to bear on and illumine his works, including “The Prophet Jonah” (Prorok Jonasz).

Brandstaetter takes Jewish tradition and literary license to expand the relatively brief Biblical Book of Jonah. As he saw it, God picked Jonah for this mission because Jonah was pleasing to Him. He was a pious and observant Jew who had always sought to do God’s Will. Here was a really great mission for him. But two things held Jonah back. One was some degree of comfort: like Job before his sufferings, Jonah probably enjoyed pleasant circumstances he was reticent to give up. If God really wanted him to, he would. But did God really want that?

We might think this is a diabolical temptation that struck a chord with its recipient’s dispositions, not unlike how Eve’s potential interest in a juicy McIntosh might have dovetailed with the snake’s temptation, “did God really say X?” (Gen 3:1). To that degree, turning down a trip to Ninevah and Jonah’s comfortable complacency might have jibed.

But, as noted, Jonah was devoted to God. So, if God wanted him to do something, Jonah would have found it hard to refuse on purely personal grounds alone. He might have found it in him to rouse himself and go to Ninevah. But Jonah also had doubts. God had chosen Israel. “I will be your God and you will be My people.” Israel was the apple of God’s eye. So, if God was really so in love with His People, why would He send Jonah to preach conversion to a bunch of Gentiles? And not just any bunch of Gentiles but Gentiles from a place that ranked up there alongside Sodom and Gomorrah as sin cities!

Since that didn’t make sense, at least according to the categories in which Jonah thought, could this summons actually be from God? Might it not, in fact, be a temptation from the devil, a false call to lure him out of the safety and security (and comfort) of Israel to go on this fool’s errand? And, if that is what the Evil One is calling him to do, plaguing him with these thoughts in Israel, wouldn’t the best thing be to go 180◦ in the opposite direction? 

Book me on a cruise to Tarshish!

In the course of the novella, Brandstaetter’s Jonah regularly struggles between his doubts about the authenticity of God’s call (sometimes real, sometimes manufactured) and his own preferences to stay put. Even when he has open conversations with God, he manages to delude himself into believing it was not God.

Long story short, after God redirects Jonah’s path to Ninevah, where he successfully performs his mission, Brandstaetter’s Jonah does not turn into the grumpy old man under a plant that “in the morning bloomed and flourished but by evening is dry and withered” (Ps 90:6). Rather, this is the opportunity for God and Jonah to have a further conversation about how God wanted to use Israel as his springboard to the world. Like a later conversation with other disciples about “who sinned: this man or his parents?” (Jn 9:2), God can use such opportunities to expand human horizons, reminding people “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways your ways” (Is 55:8).

In the course of that conversation, God blesses Jonah for the mission and its success. An honest Jonah, one who somewhere in his heart sought to serve God, demurs, saying that whatever he did occurred against his will. God corrects him, noting that it was even greater that he overcome his will to do what God asked.

Jonah says, “You know, after all, that your command was not according to my thoughts and if it were not for…”

“So much greater your merit,” the Lord interrupts him. “You carried out [my] command order contrary to yourself and for my Glory. In your obedience you put yourself aside so far that you preferred to contradict yourself rather than your Lord. You offered me your will in sacrifice, Jonah, and in this manner you bore witness to your love of me. I appreciate your sacrifice and submission. There is nothing more beautiful than a man who sacrifices his will to God. And as regards that compulsion that you mentioned, know that blessed are those people chosen by Me who act under my beneficent compulsion.”

A proto-beatitude, like Thomas’s?

That’s not to say there were not sinful elements in Jonah’s refusal, just as there might have been prideful stubbornness in Thomas. But both men, in love with God, were finally able to get past themselves to accept God on God’s terms and adjust their wills accordingly.

The point is that human action is often a jumble of motives noble and less so, intertwined so convolutedly that even the person himself may not consciously know what is what. That is why, respecting the objectivity of reality, we also leave judgment of moral culpability to God who alone enters the sanctuary of man’s conscience (Gaudium et spes, 16). Human motivations often combine the good, the bad, and the ugly. What’s essential to the good is being willing to let God have His Will, and then conforming ours to His. Even if it takes poking around a little to do that.

[Translation of Prorok Jonasz by J. Grondelski, copyright and reserved.  The inspiration for this essay came from Fr. Augustine Owusu.]