Puerto Rico’s streets are lined with hurricane evacuation signs – the sign of a people on watch for danger. But the hurricanes have made us more dependent on God’s merciful love, knowing that God will keep us safe whatever life brings. Hopeful are we who live in the land of Puerto Rico, we who love land, nature, and people at every stage of life!

As a native Puerto Rican, I have lived through so many hurricanes and so many crisis moments of chaos and destruction. Sadly, I have seen that the poor always seem to pay a higher price in these tragedies. in 1 Johm, 3:17, 1 John 3:17, the apostle tells us, “Whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” As followers of Christ, we are called to share our abundance and to offer God’s charity.

As a native Puerto Rican, I have also been blessed to also see the recuperation from many hurricanes and natural disasters – the reconstruction of homes and the reclamation of land. I have been witness to a marathon of love – men and women cooking for their neighbors, distributing food and clothing, and offering financial assistance.

We Puerto Ricans know how to respond to a hurricane. We board up the places of refuge, like homeless shelters nursing homes, and schools. In response to the loss of shelter, schools serve as a sanctuary for children, and universities open their doors to house the needy and those made homeless by the storm.

We are grateful to FEMA, who has helped us recover so many times. We are also grateful to the Dominican Sisters, who have always contributed time, treasure, and prayer.

Prosper the work of our hands, O Lord.  Prosper the work of our hands.
Psalm 90:17.

A few years ago I reflected on the Sunday Gospel that told the post-resurrection story of Thomas, who did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Of course, he gets his reputation as a Doubting Thomas because of that incident.

And as we all know, a week later, Thomas is there when Jesus appears and he invites Thomas to touch his wounds as proof he is alive. Thomas proclaims his belief saying, “My Lord and my God.”

I have a new insight about Thomas because of the television series The Chosen. I highly recommend you catch it if you can— just download the Angel Studio app and watch it for free. There are three seasons so far. This is the telling of the story of Jesus more through the lens of his relationships with other people than directly through Jesus himself. Many episodes are about the growing cohort of people who come to believe him to be the Messiah. It’s more often their stories of coming to belief.

It turns out that in one episode Thomas is a caterer and he and his partner Rema prepare all of the food and drink and such for the wedding feast at Cana. He is fastidious, methodical, and is a bit of a challenge to Rema who is anxious to get to Cana to set everything up. Most of all he’s a bit of a worry wart, obsessing that he has plenty of food to supply this wedding. I think of him as a nervous accountant. He is a witness to Jesus’s miracle of the wine at Cana, and he is mystified by how this actually happened because, of course, he was in charge of the wine steward, a subcontractor for the wedding. Thomas just couldn’t figure out how Jesus was able to supply all this extra wine that was so wonderful. So he is left happy for the outcome, but mostly puzzled.

I can understand why Thomas is baffled by this miracle of the wine.  It stands to reason, by virtue of his personality, that he would have a hard time believing that Jesus multiplied the wine, let alone that he rose from the dead. It’s this bent of personality that strikes me because Thomas didn’t so much doubt— in our contemporary way of doubting —as he was being skeptical. I think for Thomas it just didn’t add up and he was someone who calculated all the time. How many of this and how much of that do we need for the wedding?

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” This is what condemns Thomas to his undeserved reputation — that he needed to see in order to believe.  Thus, for 2000 years his fate is sealed by a moment when he actually asked a legitimate question. How many times have you said, “I’ll believe it when I see it”?

Sometimes we are like Thomas I would wager. There is so much of the world that is unbelievable, things just baffle us. It’s not really disbelief— it’s more like being mystified by things we cannot understand. Think of the latest pictures from the James Webb telescope. It’s hard to believe that what we see is what scientists say it is. And if by bent of personality, science remains a mystery to you then is it really that you doubt the scientists?  Or are you just awestruck?

Maybe that’s it. Thomas was awestruck. It wasn’t doubt,  it was his God-given personality that made him a skeptic, a  bean counter. He probably would be a CPA today, but I think he would come to believe and say, “My Lord and my God,”  just the same.

So let’s be a little kinder and not so quick to judge people who are skeptical because by bent of their personality they’re practical. Let’s give some slack to those who seem a little pie-in-the-sky, because by  bent of personality they are dreamers. We all can come to belief in our own way.