You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for April 7th, 2021. Today is also Easter Wednesday,

Wednesday in the octave of Easter. Once again, keep celebrating. We're celebrating all the through, all the way through this coming Sunday.

So, Sprouts, all week we have been talking about Easter.

We've talked about Christ conquering death, sin, and Satan, his glorified body.

But we are spending the rest of the week talking about the personal encounters that are recorded after

the resurrection. So yesterday we talked about St. Mary Magdalene, who thought she was speaking

to the gardener until she heard her name and realized that this was Jesus Christ. Today we're

going to talk about another familiar character from

the Gospels and we refer to him because of this story as doubting Thomas. So here is what

happened. So after Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene, he then appeared to all of his apostles, all of the disciples. They were all gathered

in a room together, and the door was locked, but still Christ suddenly was there standing in their

midst. Now reflect on what it might have felt like to be one of those disciples.

Each man in that room had either abandoned

Christ in the garden or they weren't there at the cross. They'd run away. And now they were here

hiding. And then if you're Peter, you had denied him and he knew that you had denied him. So just imagine what they felt like.

They probably felt scared, a little crummy. I mean, excited because here's Christ risen from the dead,

but it's a complicated thing that they're feeling. But what does Christ do? He doesn't lecture them about their sins.

He doesn't even bring them up. Instead, he breathes on them and says, receive the Holy Spirit.

He offers them mercy and forgiveness.

Mercy and forgiveness without questions, without lectures, the risen Christ.

He's not here to dwell on all of the bad things that happened before.

He's here to offer us a new beginning, full of mercy and

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