{"id":3097,"date":"2024-07-03T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=3097"},"modified":"2024-07-02T14:27:03","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T14:27:03","slug":"facing-challenging-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2024\/07\/03\/facing-challenging-questions\/uncategorized\/3097\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing challenging questions."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Laurin Steffens<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

St Thomas is one of my favourite disciples because he is so direct and has the courage to ask awkward questions. He asked the questions that other people didn\u2019t quite have the nerve for. His feast has particular resonance for me as we come to the end of general election campaign that has raised awkward questions in many areas of our lives.

There are many reasons why we avoid asking the awkward questions. Maybe we don\u2019t want to be seen as troublemakers, or appear uninformed or unintelligent. Maybe we are scared that there will be no answers, or that they will be too challenging and hard for us to cope with.

We can draw courage from both Thomas\u2019 reaction and Jesus\u2019 response. When Jesus appears again and Thomas has the courage to voice those questions he faces neither criticism or blame. Instead Jesus offers him exactly what he says he needs to be able to believe in the resurrection:

\u201cHe spoke to Thomas \u2018Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Doubt no longer but believe.\u2019\u201d<\/em>

His words break down any barriers of doubt that Thomas still harboured. Jesus\u2019 acceptance of Thomas\u2019 position enables Thomas to open his heart to believe in the reality of the risen Christ. Jesus accepts our questions and uncertainties in exactly the same way, coming to each of us in the way that is most likely to open our heart to to accept his peace and love in our lives.

Where is the risen Christ giving you the courage to ask the awkward questions that you need to?
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St Thomas is one of my favourite disciples because he is so direct and has the courage to ask awkward questions. He asked the questions that other people didn\u2019t quite have the nerve for. His feast has particular resonance for me as we come to the end of general election campaign that has raised awkward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,494,544,461,239,271,362,246,344,1],"tags":[28,18,30,376,448,83,6,8,33,229,13,29,15,598,69,378,553,10],"class_list":["post-3097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-discernment","category-divine-office","category-gospel","category-lectio-divina","category-resurrection","category-scripture","category-truth","category-uncategorized","tag-benedictine","tag-challenge","tag-courage","tag-disciples","tag-discipleship","tag-faith","tag-gospel","tag-hope","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-love","tag-newlife","tag-questions","tag-resurrection","tag-risenchrist","tag-stthomas","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3103,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions\/3103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}