St. Thomas

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Thomas, called the Twin, who was one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he answered, ‘Unless I can see the holes that the nails have made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe’” (John 20:24-25).

On this Feast of St. Thomas, Our Lord gives us this example of stubborn disbelief. Thomas makes this definite assertion against the faith.

“The apostles come to him and they said to him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’” They are His friends, they're trustworthy, they're apostles, but Thomas refuses to believe anything that they say.

In some ways he's really the pits. He answers with those words, “Unless I can see the holes that the nails have made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes...I will not believe.”

He's very definite, he's very clear. Then we're told, “Eight days later the disciples were in the house again and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were closed” (John 20:26).

The apostles were cowering in fear, hiding from the very people they were supposed to evangelize.

But we're told, “Jesus came.” The verbs attached to the Holy Name can be impressive: “Jesus came.” He came in this low moment. He came in this moment of fear, and He also came through the closed doors.

Christ also can enter into hearts that are closed. The doors of the heart may be closed against Him, but He's able to penetrate everything. He can convert all sorts of hearts. He can change us on the inside.

“He came and he stood among them. Then he said, ‘Peace be with you’” (John 20:26).

Our Lord could have upbraided the apostles for their lack of fidelity, for their lack of belief. He could have launched into a tirade against Thomas for being so ridiculous.

But Our Lord speaks words of peace, as if telling us, in all situations, where we go, we have to bring peace. Situations of discord, of tension, of disagreement, of miscommunication, of bitterness—first and foremost, we bring peace.

“Then he spoke to Thomas.” It's interesting to see the affection with which Our Lord deals with Thomas. He deals with him very tenderly, very gently, warms him up slowly, welcomes him, understands him in his weakness.

Our Lord understands us also in our weakness and reaches out to us in the same way that He did with Thomas.

“He spoke to Thomas and said, ‘Put your finger here. Look, here are my hands. Give me your hand, put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving anymore but believe’” (John 20:27).

He invites Thomas to change, to start a whole new life, to become an authentic apostle. He invites him to live by faith.

We're not told that Thomas actually put his hand into His side or put his finger into the wounds. We're just told that Thomas made this great act of faith: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

In the moments of the elevation at the Consecration of the Mass, those are very appropriate moments to repeat that aspiration of Thomas, that act of faith: “My Lord and my God!”

We could also use that act of faith in many other moments of our day. When we find ourselves in the ordinary circumstances where God has placed us, in this job, with this task, fulfilling this duty, stuck in a traffic jam, having to wait in a queue, being a little bit impatient or frustrated: ‘My Lord and my God. This is where you want me to be at this particular moment.’

This is your calling for me. This is my mission. This is where you want me to be holy, with this feeling of tiredness or with this headache or with this pain or with this sense of frustration: My Lord and my God.

St. Augustine says, “Thomas saw and touched the man and acknowledged the God whom he neither saw nor touched; but by the means of what he saw and touched, he now put far away from him every doubt and believed the other” (St. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 121,5).

We could ask Our Lord that He also might put away from us every doubt, every hesitation, so as to be able to “launch out into the deep” (Luke 5:4).

From this moment forward, St. Thomas goes on to become a great saint and a great apostle. He's going to evangelize Persia and Syria. He's going to reach India, the outermost parts of the world, or the known world at that time. The sky's the limit.

“Jesus said to him, ‘You believe because you can see me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe’” (John 20:29).

Our Lord encourages us in the fact that we do not see and yet we believe. Our Lord is helping all those who are to come over time.

St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Those who believe without seeing are more meritorious than those who seeing, believe” (Thomas Aquinas, In Johann. XX lectio VI 2566).

We can rest peaceful in that beatitude: “Blessed are they who believe and have yet not seen.”

There's another moment when Our Lord was returning to Judea to visit His sick friend Lazarus, and there were dangers of that journey. There was a possibility of death because of the mounting hostility of these authorities.

But Thomas encouraged the other apostles to accompany Our Lord on that journey: “Let us also go and die with him” (John 11:14-16).

Thomas is revealed as a dedicated and impetuous follower of Our Lord. He goes out of his way. He's willing to go all the way. He holds nothing back.

We could ask Our Lord for that same grace to be ready to give everything, to go the whole way so as to follow you, and to be ready to risk everything because we know that everything is worth risking for Our Lord. There's nothing that we can hold back.

Our Lord calls us to be very focused on Him, to be very Christ-centered. He wants everybody in every age to go the whole way.

And so, we see his determination. He gives us a valuable lesson. The way he's willing to follow the Master is truly exemplary. He sets the bar very high.

The most important thing is never to distance ourselves from Our Lord. When the Gospel uses the words “to follow” it means that we have to go wherever He goes.

“Come, follow me, and I will make you into fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). To Matthew, He said, “Follow me” (Matt. 9:9). He wants us to have a total readiness to stand by Our Lord.

Thomas was ready to go all the way to the point of identifying himself and his own destiny with that of Our Lord, even ensuring with Him the supreme trial of His death. So we're called to live a life with Jesus Christ, to spend a life together with Him.

St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “You are in our hearts, to die together and to live together” (2 Cor. 7:3).

He has to be in our heart, and we have to be in His heart. There's another moment of the Last Supper when Our Lord tells the apostles that He's going to go to prepare a place for them, “so that where I am, you may be also” (John 14:3).

Thomas raised his voice and said, we don't understand: “We don't know where you're going. How can we know the way?” (John 14:5).

Our Lord uses this moment to reveal to them, to say those wonderful words: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

These words of Our Lord are valid for us and for every age. When we hear these words, we can stand beside Thomas in spirit and imagine that Our Lord is speaking to us, inviting us to be very Christocentric.

It also tells us how we can ask Our Lord questions, like Thomas did. When we realize how childlike we are, we don't understand and see things, we can say to Our Lord: I don't understand, listen to me, help me to understand.

Thomas shows us a very frank way of praying, of speaking to Our Lord, of expressing our meager capacity to understand; and at the same time, placing ourselves in the trusting attitude of someone who expects light and strength from the one who's able to provide them.

A number of years ago in Singapore, there was an English man who had three sons in a school called Stonyhurst in England. It was celebrating its 500th anniversary. It was a Jesuit school started in 1495, at the time of great Catholic persecution in England.

He brought back a little booklet about the history of the school. On the last page, there were a list of their most illustrious students. The first fifteen were saints and the first twelve were martyrs. A very glorious history.

That school has stood throughout 500 years of a lot of difficulty for the Catholic Church in England. It stood there as a witness, as a bastion of faith.

It has produced many cardinal archbishops of Westminster and many very prominent lay people who have given great Christian witness down through the centuries.

But if you think about all the people who made that school function over 500 years, their names are hidden in the bricks. They don't appear in the small little booklet. But yet, because of them, this great enterprise went forward and led to a great witness at a national level.

We don't see the bigger picture. The ordinary little things that we're doing every day may seem very trivial to us.

But with faith, we can see how God is using our correspondence, our generosity, our punctuality, our docility, our humility, our effort to grow in virtue all the time, in order to achieve these greater things that have to come with the course of time.

They don't appear overnight. Some things take centuries to build up. But yet those are the works of God.

All the things that Our Lord is doing with us every day—we can be sure—have some great divine purpose. Our Lord wants us to look at all the events that we encounter with the eyes of faith, so that we with St. Thomas can repeat, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

Occasionally, we may hear of tsunamis or earthquakes or plane crashes or all sorts of things that are termed as human disasters. But with faith, we may see that behind these events, there are great spiritual lessons.

Our Father God is speaking to us, lifting us up, helping us to see the hand of Our Father God behind these events.

We're told in The Forge, “My child, you can do nothing on the supernatural level through your own strength, whereas when you become God's instrument, you can do everything. ‘I can do all things in him who strengthens me’ (Phil. 4:13). For in his goodness, he wishes to use inadequate instruments like you and me” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 232).

We're instruments, like a paintbrush in the hand of an artist. We're just a paintbrush. We're a useless instrument, but we're in the hands of an artist.

Like God working in and through that educational institution over centuries, God is using each one of us to paint a wonderful masterpiece, which we cannot understand from a human viewpoint.

But when we look at things from a supernatural perspective, then we see things as God sees them and that's how they are in reality.

Faith changes everything. After charity, the virtue that Our Lord speaks most about in the Gospels is faith.

Whenever Our Lord found faith, He was always moved. To the centurion, He said, “I have not found such great faith, even in Israel” (Luke 7:9).

When He saw the faith of Abraham, He was moved to say wonderful things: “Because you have done this, because you have not denied me your son, your only son whom you love, I will...multiply your descendants...like the grains of sand on the seashore” (Gen. 22:16-17).

Our Lord promises all sorts of wonderful things to people of faith. He also marvels sometimes at the lack of belief. “He marveled because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:6). He was surprised they were so stubborn in their disbelief.

Every time that people came to Our Lord with faith, He found them irresistible.

He turns towards the woman with the issue of blood. He turns away from the crowds to focus on the individual (Matt. 9:20-22).

He turns towards the paralytic (Mark 2:1-12). He turns to the leper (Matt. 8:1-3).

“Go in peace, your faith has saved you” (Luke 7:50).

With great reason we can turn to Our Lord and ask Him for an increase in this virtue.

We're told in The Forge, “If you persevere in your prayer with ‘personal perseverance’, God Our Lord will give you all the means you need to be more effective and to spread his kingdom in the world. But you have to be faithful: asking, asking, asking. … Are you really behaving this way?” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 372).

There might be times when we don't see the fruits. Or we wonder, am I wasting my time sowing these seeds or having this conversation with this person? Or placing these ideals in front of them, or these challenges?

It might seem that we get no response. But yet God is working.

Like when you put seeds into the ground, you don't see them growing. But you know they're moving on the inside and one day they will spread their shoots and their roots.

We're told in The Forge, "Faced by apparent sterility in your apostolate you begin to detect the first waves of discouragement, which your faith rejects quite firmly” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 257).

Notice how he says “apparent sterility” because it's only apparent. It's an optical illusion. Every seed we sow will grow and yield abundant fruit in due time. Nothing is ever lost.

“But you realize,” he continues, “that you need a more humble, lively, and operative faith. As someone who longs to bring health to souls, you should cry out, like the father of that sick boy possessed by the devil, ‘Lord, help my unbelief!’ (Mark 9:24). Have no doubt, the miracle will be performed again” (Ibid.).

From his position of lack of faith, Thomas goes forward to bring the seeds of faith to many places that were at the periphery of the known world. He does great things. That act of faith energizes him, allows him to go forward.

The last words that Our Lord said to St. Thomas have also relevance for us: “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29). Our Lord is speaking to all those who come after Thomas.

St. Luke tells us, “Blessed are the eyes which see what you see” (Luke 10:23). St. Thomas Aquinas says those who believe without seeing are even more blessed. God has blessed them in a special way.

Thomas—his case is important for us, firstly, because it comforts us in our insecurity. It also shows us that every doubt can lead to an outcome brighter than any uncertainty. We can grow into the light of faith.

And also, because the words that Jesus addressed to Thomas remind us of the true meaning of mature faith and encourage us to persevere in spite of the difficulties along the journey of walking close to Christ.

Later on in the Gospel, we're also told that Thomas is a witness to the miraculous catch of fish (John 21:1-8), possibly as a reward for his act of faith.

He sees the great number of fish that were so many that the net was almost breaking—as though encouraging the apostles in the great work of mission that they're about to embark on, the great fruits that are going to come.

There's a phrase in the Old Testament that says, “The waters will pass through the mountains” (Ps. 104:10).

When water comes to a mountain, a river, a stream, it can't go over the mountain, but somehow it goes around the mountain or through the mountain. It gets through the obstacles.

Our faith always helps us to get through the obstacles, because God is with us. “If God is with us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31).

Christianity has always been the great motor of change in the world. Through the Catholic Church, the Holy Spirit has changed the face of the earth, particularly through education and health care. It’s all a work of faith.

God is pure light, and our eyes are not capacitated for that light. We need to ask God to help the scales to fall from our eyes (Mark 8:22-26); like the blind man: “Lord, help me to see” (Mark 10:51-52); “I believe, help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:23-25).

Help me to think with faith, to act with faith, to plan with faith, to work with faith, to pray with faith, to be open to all the plans you have for my life, so that I see everything is coming from your loving hands. I see my Father God in those things.

“If you, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good things to those who love him?” (Matt. 7:11).

How much more? Those words can lead us to dream with faith.

In The Forge we're told, “Sometimes the immediate future is full of worries, if we stop seeing things in a supernatural way. —So faith, my child, faith…and more deeds. In that way it is certain that our Father God will continue to solve your problems” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 657).

“Work on to the very end! My child, he who perseveres to the end, it's he who will be saved. —We children of God have the means we need: you too! We will finish, we will top out our building, for ‘we can do all things in him who strengthens us’ (Phil. 4:13). —With God there are no impossibles. They overcome always” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 656).

When it's dark, you can see the stars. Pope St. John Paul, in a document called “At the Beginning of the New Millennium” said that the Catholic religion is the religion of remaining in God. “Abide in me and I in you” (John 15:4).

If we always remain in God, then we know everything will turn out right. “Tough times don't last, tough people do” (Robert H. Schuller).

In our professional work, when there are demands or tensions or stresses or anxieties or discouragements, we can turn to Our Father God in faith and also realize that life is made up of successes and failures.

God has wanted certain failures in our life. Sometimes we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes.

This is what our life is all about—that we know with faith that God is behind each one of these things. He's also there in the failures, so that we learn to have more faith in the future.

On many occasions, we're told in Scripture that Our Lady did not understand the words that were spoken to her. But she said, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

There were times when the apostles didn't understand. They had toiled all night. They knew the area. They knew the fishing fields. They knew where it was good to fish and where it wasn't good to fish.

They knew that there were no fish to be caught that night. “But at your word, I will lower the net” (Luke 5:5). I will not function with human reasoning.

Sometimes our own reason can become unreasonable. God wants us to respond with faith to whatever we're told. Have faith. In our obedience, in our docility, in our humility, in our humiliating situations, God is here.

Very often faith in God is expressed in the means that are placed in front of us—that we will get to heaven or that the building will get finished or that the job will get done.

We hope and we pray in all those things, that this particular job that I'm doing now, this task, will lead to that end—through this spiritual reading, through this spirit of prayer, through this Mass, through this act of virtue, through being at home when I should be at home, through being in the place where I should be.

By doing one by one, day by day, hour by hour, what I'm supposed to be doing—that will lead us to the end. That really is faith.

Faith in the means that God has given to us, and particularly faith in the spiritual means that God has given us to achieve our sanctity or to carry out our mission, to do apostolate, to get to heaven.

If, sometimes, Our Lord wants us to react with heroic faith, with heroic sacrifice, then so be it.

‘Lord, if you ask this thing from me, then here it is. I give it to you. I know that you're going to use this thing for some greater good and that's what I want.’

With faith, we could ask Our Lord for deeper desires of personal holiness.

When Pope St. John Paul II talked about the vocation of Our Lady, he talked about it as “a pilgrimage of faith” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Redemptoris Mater), a journeying forward to a certain destination.

When we look at the life of Thomas, who journeyed from that defiant unbelief to being a great sower of the Gospel in Persia, Syria, and India, we see a wonderful trajectory, a wonderful pilgrimage.

We could ask Our Lady, Mother of faith put into practice, help us to put this virtue into practice in a more effective way every day.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GD