Reflections by Fr Mathibela Sebothoma

  Peace Be With You The doors were locked— not just wood and iron, but hearts barricaded with fear, dreams sealed behind disappointment, breaths heavy with what if and what now . And still— He came. Not knocking, not forcing, just appearing in the middle of their trembling— “Peace be with you.” Peace, not as the world gives, not as empty words tossed into storms, but peace that stands inside the storm and refuses to move. Thomas was not alone. There are many Thomases today— counting coins that never add up, stretching hope thinner than bread, staring at ceilings at night, asking God questions that echo back unanswered. “Unless I see… unless I touch… unless something changes…” There are those who doubt God, and those who doubt themselves even more— the ones who whisper, “I am not enough,” “I have failed,” “I will never be okay.” There are prayers that rise like incense but seem to fall back like ash. Tears that baptise pillows with no visible ...

  Basin and Towel (John 13) Tonight water will remember what hands have forgotten. Basins will shine, linen folded like reverence, knees will bend— but only so far. Feet will arrive already clean, perfumed with Sunday respectability, soft from carpets that have never known dust. The chosen will sit in a row, good members, good names, their dignity never questioned. And somewhere beyond the church doors, dust keeps speaking— in cracked heels, in blistered journeys, in lives that smell of survival. Who is not invited to this washing? The one whose story embarrasses us. The one whose clothes speak too loudly of poverty. The one whose choices we whisper about. The one who does not fit our neat liturgies of belonging. Yet He knelt anyway. No debate about worthiness. No committee for inclusion. No doctrine to filter mercy. Just a basin, a towel, and love that refused hierarchy. He touched betrayal as gently as devotion. The same hands that formed the...