This is the traditional name for the Second Sunday of Easter. This strange name is derived from the opening words in medieval Latin: 1 Peter 2:2 “Be like new-born babies and desire genuine rational milk, which will help you to grow up in salvation!” (Quasi modo geniti infantes rationale sine dolo lac concupiscite ut in eo crescatis in salutem)
On this First Sunday after Easter we will read the story of Thomas (John 20:19-29). Far from being unbelieving, Thomas became the first theologian, asking questions about faith, guarding himself from superstition and prejudice (wishful thinking), yet eager to learn and to understand. We will attempt to penetrate the Gospel of Thomas and to uncover Jesus’ parable unrecorded in the Bible. A similar similitude from the 2 Corinthians as well as the parable from the Gospel of Philip will help us crack this ancient yet lively conundrum of the Logion 97.
We will stay true to the theological legacy of this Sunday. Even the affirmation of faith will be phrased in the mode of Apophatism. That is the traditional theological way in which faith is being expressed by declaring what we do not believe:
We do not believe God wants us to stop searching, asking and learning.
We do not believe God speaks only in church lingo and through stilted rituals.
We do not believe God approves what people have done to the world.
We do not believe God organizes the death of anyone even God’s own son.
We do not believe God wills hunger and poverty for any of God’s children.
We do not believe God approves abuse, torture and war for any reasons.
We do not believe God cannot remould and reshape us and our broken world.
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| A slide from a lecture on Gnosticism. |
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| I grew up in glass-making part of Czech Republic. My maternal grandfather worked in the glass factory, he used to shape wooden molds for the glass-blowers. I still remember vividly my high-school summer jobs in a glass factory, especially the smell of burned beeswax used for lubrication. |
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