Today we celebrate the solemnity of St Thomas, the Apostle of India. He was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, who was an eyewitness to the many of the happenings during the public life and ministry of Jesus. But more importantly he becomes a minister of the Word of God and Sacrament that Jesus was, and took the good news even to the ends of the earth.
Even from the gospels we know very little about St Thomas also called the Didymus (the Twin). When Jesus said He was returning to Judea to visit His sick friend Lazarus, Thomas immediately exhorted the other Apostles to accompany Him on the trip which involved certain danger and possible death because of the mounting hostility of the authorities. He said, “Come let us go and die with him.”
At the Last Supper, when Christ told His disciples that He was going to prepare a place for them to which they also might come because they knew both the place and the way, Thomas pleaded that they did not understand and received the beautiful assurance that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
St Thomas is best known for his role in verifying the Resurrection of his Master. Thomas’ unwillingness to believe that the other Apostles had seen their risen Lord on the first Easter Sunday earned him the title of “doubting Thomas.”
Eight days later, on Christ’s second apparition, Thomas was gently rebuked for his skepticism and furnished with the evidence he had demanded - seeing in Christ’s hands the point of the nails. Thomas even put his fingers in the nail holes and his hand into Christ’s side. After verifying the wounds were true, St. Thomas became convinced of the reality of the Resurrection and exclaimed, “My Lord and My God,” thus making a public Profession of Faith in the Divinity of Jesus.
Thomas could well be the precursor of the arrival of a scientific age, when questioning and doubting are not seen as something alien to human persons. He is the icon of human intellect seeking its own answers. The intelligent and rational part of us can only find rest when it finds truth. It is a wonderful human passion, the passionateness of our being that drives and inspires us to arrive at truth. We are created lights seeking truth and beauty and goodness in all we encounter.
“My Lord and my God!” It is clearly a statement of deep faith. Thomas is the only person in the Gospel to address Jesus directly as ‘God’. If Thomas could be an icon of our intellectual and critical nature of human being, he is also certainly an icon of deep conviction of faith in God. He shows that our human wisdom needs to be complemented with a wisdom that comes from God. He shows the modern world that seeking answers and solutions is not the only way of being human, but more importantly that we human beings are called to believe, to have faith, and to love.
Perhaps only a character like Thomas could reach as far as the Indian sub-continent from the first century Palestine. It was his conviction and passion that pushed him to do the impossible. He took the faith that he received from Jesus himself, which was just a public enactment of what he professed behind closed doors, “My Lord and my God.”
St Thomas invites us to translate our passion for God and for humanity into actions. We need to profess that Jesus is Lord and God not just with our lips, but more importantly by our actions of love and compassion. Like Thomas we need to incarnate God and faith in Him in our postmodern, scientific world. Beyond our scientific and rational bent towards reality, we need to proclaim that God is real and that His marvellous designs are real through our very lives and actions.
No comments:
Post a Comment