The Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, Friday, July 3, 2020

John 20:24-29

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail-marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

St. Thomas was a Galilean, probably from the region around the Sea of Galilee, from which the other Apostles also came.  The lists of the Apostles given us in the Gospels evidently are formed in order of their calling, and if this is so, Thomas was called after Bartholomew and before Matthew.  We do not have the circumstances of his calling.  Like many of the other Apostles, he possesses a second name, “Didymus”, from the Greek word for “twin”.  It is possible that he was a fisherman, since we see him fishing with Peter in John 22, 2-3.  He was a man of courage and of deep feeling for our Lord.  On the occasion of the death of Lazarus, the Lord proposed to return from Judea where he had nearly been stoned not long before.  All but one of the Apostles objected, but Jesus insisted.  “Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11, 16).

Most of all, St. Thomas is known to us as “Doubting Thomas”.  We might wonder at his “unbelieving”.  After all, the ten remaining Apostles and some other disciples had seen him.  To understand his reaction we note that after the Passion and Death of our Lord, the Apostles had returned to the house in which they had eaten the Last Supper with him.  A large house, it belonged to a disciple and the Apostles had some familiarity with it.  Perhaps they had stayed there on earlier visits to Jerusalem with Jesus.  Pointedly, they did not flee back to Galilee, nor did they scatter throughout Jerusalem.  Some time after the arrest of Jesus, perhaps after his Death, they drifted back to this house.  But why stay in Jerusalem like this?  They could have gotten away to Galilee even if watches had been set at the gates.  An inner urge which they could not have explained to each other kept them there, in one place.  Probably other, lesser, disciples brought them food and news; otherwise, they remained in hiding.  But Thomas is missing on Easter Sunday.  Had he not yet made it back to the house?  Had he actually left the city and then returned after thinking it over?  The idea that he had not yet rejoined the Apostles seems more compelling than if he had stayed with them over the Sabbath and then gone out on an errand the next day.  

But why, having thrown in his lot with the remaining Apostles, does he not believe them when they say that Jesus had appeared to them?  Was the depth of his grief over the Lord’s Death so great as to overwhelm his desire to believe them?  His words to them are most emphatic: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail-marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  it is not enough for him to hear about the Lord.  He must see and touch him, and to be seen and touched by him.  Once reunited with his fellow Apostles, he stays with them.  He has no assurance that the Lord will appear again, but he maintains a vigil in the last place Jesus was said to be, hoping against hope.

We see this Apostle’s enormous relief and joy burst forth in his, “My Lord and my God!”  All Thomas needs to do is to look into the eyes of his Master to know that it is him.  This opening of his heart produces the most perfect act of faith anyone had offered Jesus.  We can well imagine him falling to his knees in tears at this moment of recognition — not merely of the Jesus he had known, but of who Jesus was.  The Lord, for his part, uses the occasion to look ahead in time at all those who would long for his presence, although they had not seen him and to pronounce blessing on them.  In this way the Lord Jesus tells Thomas and the others what they must do: to share their faith and their joy with all the people of the world.

Tradition relayed by St. Jerome and St. Ambrose, and other Fathers tells us that after Pentecost, Thomas preached the Gospel in India.  To this day, Christians living on the southwest coast of India refer to themselves as “St. Thomas Christians”.  They worship in the Syriac Rites, which have their origin in the Antiochene Rite said to have been composed by St. James, the son of Alphaeus.