Daily Reflection Feast of Saint Thomas, Apostle

The Apostle Thomas exists in the Synoptic gospels only as a name in the list of the Apostles that appears in each one. But in the gospel of John, he appears several times and is given several things to say, which is more than can be said of almost all of the other Apostles in the gospel accounts. He first appears in John in chapter 11 when Jesus tells the Apostles that Lazarus is dead and that he is going to go to him, even though the Jewish leaders are hunting him down. Thomas, who is called “the Twin” here for the first time, says to the other disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Then at the Last Supper in chapter 14 in response to Jesus telling the twelve, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going,” Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” To which Jesus replies, “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” Then he is also among the group of seven disciples fishing again in the Sea of Galilee (Tiberius) in the great 21^st chapter of John.

Finally, and most famously, he is in the post resurrection chapter 20 of John we read from today. There, he is absent when Jesus first appears to the disciples after the resurrection but when they all tell him that the Lord has appeared to them, Thomas refuses to believe them unless he can, “put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side.” Thus, Thomas has forever won for himself the title of “Doubting Thomas.” The following week, the resurrected Jesus appears to them again and Jesus tells Thomas to do just what he had said, which elicits his famous confession of faith, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus concludes the scene by saying, “Blessed are they who believe but have not seen,” which may very well be understood as the final Beatitude of Christ’s.

We are those blessed. Unlike Thomas, we have demanded no proof. We simply believe what the Gospels have told us. Let us pray that we will always believe and believe fully without any proof whatsoever. For so many today demand signs of some kind. They either insist on seeing certain events or happenings as a sign of God’s presence, or they put much stock in things like the shroud of Turin or in visions certain people claim to have been given or even in claims of appearances by the Blessed Mother. They want and are anxious to find evidence that will prove to them that God exists. They are often the same ones who lose the little faith they had when some catastrophe or loss happens to them and they blame God or see it as proof that God was not there after all and thus abandon their faith. Jesus spoke of this in the parable of the Sower and the seed. “And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.” (Mk 4:16-17)

Let us pray that we will simply believe. There is numerous evidence to the contrary all around us: wars; famine; poverty; illness and plagues; great injustice and corruption; hatreds and prejudice; murder and violence and cruelty; children suffering. Many ask how can a loving God allow these things? Perhaps we have asked this too. Let us pray to hear the Lord tell us, as he told the Apostles in John’s gospel at the Last Supper when everything they had dreamed, everything they had hoped for was about to collapse and die, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Have faith in God and faith in me,” and “Take courage, for I have overcome the world!”