Constant struggle.

The saying goes: “Repetition is the mother of wisdom.” We know that whoever wants to achieve something great must often start, again and again, overcoming initial setbacks and difficulties, and only then can we speak of victory.
The passage from the Gospel draws our attention to the actions of Christ after his resurrection. Jesus reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart. From these words of Jesus, we can feel the instruction and encouragement for us in our struggles for a deeper faith, for a more powerful clinging to Christ.

This Gospel passage is from Mark’s appendix. He recounts the Lord Jesus’ revelations from the other Gospels after his resurrection, first to Mary Magdalene, the two disciples of Emmaus, and finally to the eleven apostles at the table.
Jesus, after His resurrection, has to start from the beginning with his disciples. All the enthusiasm and zeal of the three years they spent with Jesus evaporated. But Jesus frees his apostles from sorrow and despair, and even here, we encounter absolute unbelief, a hardness of heart for the apostles because they did not believe those who had seen the risen Christ. Jesus again approaches the apostles and awakens faith in them in this small group of people because he knows that they will soon become the foundation of the future Church. Even this doubt of theirs will serve to bring many to accept the faith and teachings of Christ. Therefore, it is as if Jesus is working again to arouse the shaken faith of His apostles. Mark, in his Gospel, uses the words – to all creation. In this designation, we can say that it is missionary terminology used by Christians from paganism, where we understand that all people, all product is to meet the proclamation of the gospel and be transformed for us.

This gospel is a kind of struggle of Jesus for Peter, John, and Thomas, but it is also a struggle for us. We have not seen Jesus; we have not touched his pierced hands and side, yet, we believe. Why? Because Jesus has reached out to us and wrestled with us as with his first apostles. And so, he invites us to follow him, bear witness, and multiply with pride the ranks of those who from the beginning have believed in the one, universal, apostolic Church. Whoever believes in Christ must also persevere in him and strive to come out of doubt and cowardice because this is how Christ wants us to be.

Christ wants us to be soulful and joyful proclaimers of the good news. This is our task. Everyone who has received baptism also accepts this task. Whoever wants to carry out this task must believe and not doubt. Jesus rebukes unbelief. His disciple must not be an unbeliever. We believe Christians who have been incarnated to Christ by baptism have become his apostles. We, therefore, have a duty to witness to Christ. It is not enough to remain with theory.

How and when are we to witness it? We must remind ourselves again that a good example is an essential way of proving by our lives that we are imbued with faith in the glorified Lord Jesus. We must not underestimate this way of the apostolate. The apostolate of the word is correct, but we know that the world does not believe much in terms but wants deeds. We believe that life is more powerful than words.

From the life of St. Francis of Assisi, we know the lesson. He once invited one of his confrères, a well-known and renowned preacher, to preach. From the morning, this brother walked with Francis through the city’s streets. In the evening, he was already impatient, asking Francis when he would preach. Then Francis said to him gravely: “My brother, you have been preaching to those we meet since morning.”

And behold, what does this mean for the practice of our lives? We are to set the example in our own lives, first, our own families. Parents to children, husband to wife, wife to husband, and then to everyone else, no one excluded, must be addressed by our life and not just by our words. All who meet us must-see from our lives that we believe in the resurrection of the body, in eternal life, in Jesus Christ.

And this requires a constant beginning, a repetition in our lives. We must not become discouraged because the example is Jesus Christ Himself, who, after His resurrection, taught and encouraged His apostles again and again.