PEACE BE WITH YOU
“Peace be with you.” This greeting in today’s Gospel offers the great gift of Easter. The risen Jesus says it not once, but three times: “Peace be with you.”
That repetition matters because the disciples are behind locked doors out of fear. They are grieving, ashamed, and afraid that what happened to Jesus may happen to them. To be honest, I identify with them. My own heart can feel like a room locked in fear: fear about the future, grief from unwanted loss, shame about the past, anxiety about what comes next. Maybe you know those fears too. Yet into our fears, Jesus comes and says, “Peace be with you.” The peace that Jesus breathed on the disciples, and on us, is not more than the absence of conflict. It is shalom: wholeness, well-being, being embraced by God’s presence.
And right after he speaks peace, he shows them his wounds. That matters. The wounds are not only proof that this is really Jesus. They show why peace is his to give. He has done the hard work of overcoming death, and the wounds remain. Resurrection did not erase the Passion; it transformed it.
A friend of mine said something profound a month after the death of her mother. She spoke of a deep peace beneath the grief. Not because the grief disappeared. Not because the loss became easy. But because beneath the pain, there was a deeper current holding her. She never imagined her faith could be deepened through such a loss. That is resurrection peace. It is not surface calm. It is not pretending everything is fine. It is peace with grit: peace that can hold grief, fear, and confusion without collapsing.
Thomas’s doubt deepens this gift of peace. Jesus does not shame him. He invites him closer: “Put your finger here… Bring your hand and put it into my side.” Jesus does not heal Thomas by avoiding the wound, but by meeting him there.
Maybe that is our story too. We do not come to faith by ignoring our doubts or our woundedness. We come by bringing our wounds into the presence of the risen One. By touching his wounds, we begin to face our own. By receiving his Spirit, we receive his peace. And by grace, we gradually become more than frightened people. We become people sent to bear peace and forgiveness.
Take the time today to hear the whisper of Jesus in your heart: “Peace be with you.” May we receive that peace, let it enter our wounds, transform our fear, and make us people who carry his peace into a wounded world.
Tri Dinh, SJ