Let us Pray.
O Wind Whisperer, we celebrate this Easter season with delighted senses and the energy of renewed creation. And yet, we have trouble recognizing your beauty, lost in this world scarred by wildfires and war zones. Just like Thomas, we doubt this world can be made anew.
O Fruit Grower, we try to nurture acts of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But these fruits sour from abuse, greed, inequality, ignorance, neglect, selfishness, excessiveness, disharmony, and idolatry. Just like Thomas, we doubt our actions can be made anew.
O Changemaker, we anxiously await alongside our Catholic sisters and brothers to hear who will be chosen as the next Pope. And yet, we have trouble believing power doesn’t corrupt, knowing time and again how leaders across institutions remake this world to look like them, not you. Just like Thomas, we doubt systems can be made anew.
O Sustainer, we desire bounty and blessing for our family and friends. And yet, we are restricted by job losses, delayed retirements, high medical bills, increasing grocery prices, widening gender pay gaps, and unexpected tariffs. Just like Thomas, we doubt our futures can be made anew.
O Time Wielder, we talk about the long arc bending towards justice. And yet, we witness domestic abuse, bullying, mass shootings, political disappearances, revisionist history, and trans and LGBTQ hate crimes on such a scale that we feel paralyzed. Just like Thomas, we doubt what we could make anew.
And yet, you are the Hope Bringer. You seek us behind locked doors time and again. You show us that scars can heal, systems can be refashioned, futures can unfold anew, and the orchard of your Spirit isn’t an unattainable Eden but the gardens we sow right now.
So we come before you today as a room of Thomases, praying that in our moments of doubt, when we do not believe what others have seen and told us has happened to them, that you show us your marks of unfolding grace and resurrected hope so that we may be faithful to your vision for this world once again.
And in that spirit of hope and promise, we pray the prayer you taught us, saying,
Our Mother, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.