Homily for Thursday, 3 July 2014‒ Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle

Readings of the day: Ephesians 2:19-22; Psalm 117:1bc-2; John 20:24-29

St. Thomas the Apostle, also named Didymus or “the twin” in our Gospel reading today, is often nicknamed “Doubting Thomas,” but how often do we think of Thomas not as “Doubting Thomas” but perhaps as “Believing Thomas” or even “Trusting Thomas”?

Is not Thomas a lot like us in our faith? We, like Thomas, like certainty; not being kept wondering about what we are to believe; what beliefs or teachings are essential to our Christian faith and which are not as essential, and so forth… In icons, Thomas is often depicted holding a square measure. Thomas is the scientific thinker: Everything measured; planned; certain. “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,” Thomas says to his brother Apostles after Jesus’ resurrection.

Whenever I visit my parents’ home and walk into my father’s shop, the large square measure that hangs on Dad’s shop wall especially stands out to me. I am reminded of Thomas, one of my favorite Apostles. My father, a retired meteorologist, and I, a microbiology lab technologist before I was a Basilian, are scientific thinkers, much like St. Thomas whose icons show him holding a square measure. Dad and I have had many conversations about the need for certainty, particularly among Catholics of our more scientific mindset or among generations of us who came of age in a Church that, on the surface, was sure of itself; its teachings clear, memorable, and sometimes recitable by rote (the era of the Baltimore Catechism!).

Many of us thrive on the Church of the square measure; the Church whose certainty the Apostle Thomas sought: “Unless I see… I will not believe.” There is nothing wrong with this kind of faith; this kind of quest for certainty. In this way, many of us are as Thomas’ second name, Didymus, suggests, twins with Thomas. But if we are twins with the questioning Thomas; the Thomas who seeks certainty before he believes; the “Doubting Thomas,” we are also called to be twins with the “Believing Thomas”; the “Trusting Thomas.” We are called to be twins with the Apostle Thomas who puts his hands in the wounds of Christ. We are called to be twins with the Apostle Thomas who ultimately professes his faith in the Risen Christ in the presence of his brother Apostles: “My Lord and my God”!

The Thomas we remember on this feast day, then, is not so much the “Doubting Thomas” as the “Believing Thomas” or the “Trusting Thomas.” In our Prayer over the Offerings that we are about to hear as the bread and wine are brought to our altar, we pray that God may “keep safe [God’s] gifts in us as we honor the confession of the Apostle Saint Thomas.” We honor St. Thomas, depicted in icons with a square measure and, just as often, with a scroll, which stands for his confession of faith: “My Lord and my God”!

We are called to be twins in the spirit of Thomas. Indeed, we are called to be, like Thomas, a people of the square measure. But just as often we are called to be people of the scroll who, after St. Thomas, are unafraid even when we lack certainty; when we do not have all the answers, to confess our faith boldly and trustingly: “My Lord and my God”!