Have you found yourself getting on your knees and uttering, “My Lord and My God!”? If you have, you must have had a profound epiphanous moment to have encountered Christ. And it was what St. Thomas the Apostle had in the evening of Sunday after Resurrection Sunday, as the Gospel Reading of the Feast of Saint Thomas, Apostle (John 20:24-29) describes.
In the entire Bible, nobody called Jesus God as
directly as Thomas did.
The closest one is Peter, who called Jesus “the
Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16). But this Christological
truth about Jesus was not what Peter realized on his own but revealed to him by
the heavenly Father (Matthew 16:17).
Thomas, on the other hand, realized that Jesus was,
indeed, God, upon touching directly risen Jesus’ wound mark, as he uttered, “My
Lord and my God!”(John 20:28).
This statement shows that Thomas’ faith became irreversibly firm for good. And this made him fitting to receive the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and brought the good tidings of Christ and his Kingdom all the way to the Indian subcontinent through Persia, responding to Jesus’ command, “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News”(Mark 16:15), as the refrain for the Responsorial Psalm (117:1bc, 2), which reflects that people of all nations praise and glorify God, realizing His chesed (mercy and loving kindness) and fidelity endure forever. They praise and glorify God as they encounter Christ, who is the Son of God (Matthew 16:16) and is, indeed, God (John 20:28; cf. John 1:1), thanks to an apostle, like Thomas. They praise and glorify God with full force as they encounter Christ as Thomas did, upon uttering, “My Lord and my God!”.
As he went on his apostolic mission journey eastward from Jerusalem, Thomas proclaimed, “I have seen the Lord!” and described not only how he followed Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem but also how he had his conviction that Jesus is his Lord and his God, to people he met. And they began to believe in Christ even though they though they had not seen him as Thomas and other disciples did. Nevertheless, Thomas probably have cited what Jesus said to him, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed”(John 20:29).
While Paul built churches as he journeyed westward from
Syria through Cilicia, Galatia, Asia Minor, to Macedonia and Achaia, Thomas
built churches as he made his eastward apostolic journey to India. It is
believed that Thomas first went to Alexandria via Caesarea from Jerusalem. In
this cosmopolitan city of Roman Empire, Thomas had a contact with an Indian,
and this prompted him to go to India. So, he sailed on the Niles upward from
Alexandria to Koptos. Then, he was on a land route from there to Berenice, a city
on the coast of the Red Sea. From there, he sailed to Okelis, Aden or Kana, to
Bharuch in India through the Read Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Sea. This
was his first journey, and he mainly established churches in northern India.
Returning to Jerusalem from his first mission journey
to India, Thomas made his second journey to India via the island of Socorta. This
time, he made churches in southern India. Some say that Thomas even reached as
far east as China from southern India.
St. Thomas the Apostle sure laid the solid foundation
for Christian communities in India. About 1,500 years later, St. Francis Xavier
came to India and made the churched established by St. Thomas greater to bring
further eastward mission to Japan.
As St. Paul the Apostle describes for the church he
established in Ephesus in the First Reading (Ephesians 2:19-22), people whom
St. Thomas the Apostle reached out to on his eastward mission to India were no
longer wonderer and stranger to Christ because they became the members of God’s
household. As Paul did, Thomas made those whom he evangelized conjoined with
himself and other Saints as members of God’s household (Ephesians 2:19), as
being baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
(Matthew 28:19). This body of the members
of God’s household is the Church, and its foundation was laid by the Apostles,
like Thomas and Paul, and its capstone is Jesus himself, who holds the entire
structure, so that it grows into the sacred Temple in the Lord, as well as, the
dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:20-22).
I am sure, many of those who were made into the
members of God’s household by St. Thomas the Apostle had a profound personal
encounter with Christ, making them utter, “My Lord and My God!”. Perhaps, in
their encounters, Christ showed his wound marks, which he still retain not only
after his resurrection but also after his ascension, as he did to Thomas on the
Sunday after the Resurrection Sunday.
What about you?
You have been made into a member of God’s household
through the Sacrament of Baptism. And
you have received the Sacrament of Confirmation, which is to verify that your
faith is as solid as the faith of St. Thomas the Apostles, upon touching risen
Christ’s wound mark. So, now, the question is, have you had a moment of
epiphanous encounter with Christ to have made you utter, “My Lord and My God?”
Perhaps, you may experience bouts of doubts about your
belief. Then, you may be just like Thomas when he said to other disciples, “Unless
I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe”(John 20:25). If this
becomes the case, you can pray for St. Thomas the Apostle’s intercession so
that Christ can help you strengthen your faith. He himself had gone though
doubts and skepticism. But his faith became absolutely steadfast, thanks to
Christ.
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