>>I was meeting with a couple for marriage prep, not too long ago. And the couple, in their mid-twenties deeply loved each other and I was asking them about their professions and the man told me he was a police officer – a Chicago police officer.

Now, that’s not too unusual in my parish, St. Juliana it’s in Edison park – there are a lot of first responders. So I asked him why he was a police officer, why he wanted to become a law enforcement official. Did he, you know, have family members?

And he said, no that he would be the first police officer in his family. And what he said was, he wanted to do something noble with his life. He wanted to serve. He didn’t want to sit behind a desk and be about himself. He wanted to get out there and do something heroic, to try to make a difference. For something positive. To serve.

Well, sure enough he then went on to tell me, he actually had his dream come true on the second day of his job. Literally, day two. He saved a person’s life.

Ah, there was an individual who was shot through the neck and the bullet passed clean through the neck. And so, the officer came to this man lying on the street and he stuffed into the bullet wound what is called quick gauze – combat ready, quick clotting gauze. So it’s basically, a gauze that when you put it into the wound it creates a blood clot. So, he stuffed this combat ready gauze into the wound, the blood stopped there, take this man to the hospital and they saved his life.

The officer, not too long ago, then received what is called the ‘life saving award’ from the Chicago police department. A lifesaving award. So there he did it. He saved a life, by sticking gauze in the wound.

Okay, so friends, you maybe can start to see where the connection is.

On this second Sunday of Easter we have St. Thomas who sticks his hands into the wounds of Jesus Christ and is given life – he is saved.

Friends, we all want to do something heroic with our life. None of us want to be about ourselves. We all want to be like Jesus says on another occasion, the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies so it can produce fruit. For us to give life, for us to serve, for us to be heroic we can only do so in the – fully in the life of faith.

Yes, when we’re police officers or doctors or nurses or teachers or parents or whatever it is you do, you can save a life. But, most importantly though the first life to save is your own. The life you save may be your own. And, you save your life most fundamentally by putting your hands into the wounds of Jesus Christ and allowing Christ’s blood to flow into your wounds. To heal you and to save you. And then for you to likewise, that is to introduce someone in your life – a child, spouse, a neighbor, coworker – to introduce that person likewise into the wounds of Jesus Christ so they too can be saved.

The life of faith, the life in the church, the life of prayer and the sacraments – receiving Jesus’ body and blood, that’s the soil so that we can be that seed that dies into the ground and bear’s fruit.

So, brothers and sisters spend some time today with St. Thomas – with your hands into the wound of Christ and receive eternal life.

Amen.