I recently began rereading Dracula, the original novel by Bram Stoker. I am noticing anew how Catholic the novel is. Bram Stoker was an Anglican Protestant, but his writings show a strong interest in Catholic symbols and questions of faith. In the novel, rosary beads, holy water, and a crucifix are found to be effective at controlling or keeping away evil.

Of course, vampires aren’t real. But suppose, just for a minute, that they were, and you need to go out at midnight armed only with a crucifix. You may have faith in the power of Christ to protect you, but to take that first step into the darkness, you would need something beyond faith. You would need trust.

Trust and faith are closely related, but they are not the same.

Faith is a noun. Faith means belief, commitment, and a willingness to act even when you do not have complete proof. In the Christian sense, faith is not merely believing intellectually that God exists. Even the demons know that. Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. A spiritual director once told me that the longest journey is from the head to the heart, from knowledge to faith.

Trust, on the other hand, is a verb. To trust is to believe in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of what you have faith in. Trust makes faith concrete. You may have faith that the engineers designed a bridge to hold your weight. Trust means crossing that bridge. You have faith that a boat will not sink; trust is stepping into that boat and venturing out into the deep.

Faith without trust remains abstract. Trust is faith made concrete in daily life.

Today’s Gospel graphically illustrates the transition from faith to trust. By the time of the Last Supper, the disciples had come to have faith in Jesus, that He truly was the Messiah and the Son of God. Yet on the evening of that first Easter, that same Sunday when Mary Magdalene discovered the empty tomb, they hid behind locked doors, uncertain and afraid. They trusted in locked doors and their own wits.

Then Jesus passes through that locked door. He does not begin with anger or disappointment. He comes with mercy: “Peace be with you.” He shows them His wounds, not to shame them, but to reassure them that His love has survived even the Cross. That’s when their faith became trust. They no longer simply believed certain things about Jesus; they entrusted themselves to Him.

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and that is the essence of Divine Mercy. Christ comes to those who failed Him with mercy, not to condemn, but to forgive, restore, and send them forth. He continues His work of Divine Mercy today, in your lives and in mine.

We look to the apostle Thomas for a powerful image of Divine Mercy. Jesus does not reject Thomas for his lack of trust. He meets Thomas exactly where he is, just as He meets us where we are today. Like Thomas, He invites us to touch His wounds. In this way Christ shows that uncertainty, fear, and weakness can become a path to deeper faith when they are brought honestly to Him.

Thomas’ journey is our journey. He moves from fear to faith, from faith to trust. He kneels before the risen Christ and makes one of the most powerful declarations in all of Scripture: “My Lord and my God.”

Divine Mercy is not simply God overlooking sin. It is God meeting us in our sin and refusing to give up on us. The disciples locked the doors in fear. Thomas locked his heart in doubt. Yet Christ passed through both. He came through the locked doors, and He came through the locked heart. He came bearing the wounds of His passion, not as signs of defeat, but as signs of mercy.

Pope St. Gregory the Great taught in 590 AD that, “In a marvelous way God’s mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master’s body, should heal our wounds of disbelief. The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened.”

“Jesus, I trust in You” is the heart of Divine Mercy spirituality. It means trusting Him with our fears, our penitence, our unspoken prayers, our illnesses, and our losses. It means stepping into the dark woods of an unknown future armed with trust.

“Jesus, I trust in You.” Those words reflect powerfully on today’s Gospel. The disciples are afraid. Thomas is uncertain. Yet Christ comes to them with mercy and peace. In the end, the response He seeks is not only belief in our mind, but trust in our heart.