The Liturgical Calendar: The Church Remembers

Today the church remembers Saint Thomas the Apostle.

Poor Thomas has been saddled with the unhappy nickname, "the Doubter," since the earliest days of the church. This is due, of course, to the account of him in the twentieth chapter of John's Gospel. Countless sermons and many fruitful meditations have come out of the consideration of Thomas's doubts. It is significant that he was the namesake of Thomas Aquinas, the great questioner and teacher of the Middle Ages.

Some have held that doubt is the antithesis of faith, others that it is the mother and nourisher of faith. Certainly there are many kinds and levels of doubting. Thomas's kind of doubting-- his forthright, honest questioning--has made him an attractive and popular person to modern people who tend to see great virtue therein. It is interesting that "doubting" Thomas is the first of the apostles to proclaim our Lord's divinity after the resurrection.

Thomas was a twin. He was the alleged author of an apocryphal gospel. We do not know where he went after the resurrection or where he died, but traditions of his missionary activities are in evidence from Iran to the Malabar coast of India.

O Eternal God, who did strengthen your Apostle Thomas, being doubtful, with firm and certain faith in the resurrection of your Son our Lord: Grant unto us your people, that we may be not faithless but believing, until we come to see our Savior in his glory face to face; through the same Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Read the Wikipedia article here.

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