Thomas the Apostle

Saint Thomas the Apostle

Feast 3 July

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Although he is my namesake I have not always identified with our saint for today. In my day, when you went to Catholic school and they told the Gospel Story of Doubting Thomas all the kids in my class would swivel their heads around and stare at me with anger. I would angrily ask my parents why they didn’t name me John, or Peter, my middle name. Peter may have denied, but at least he was in charge. For this reason alone I always identified with Thomas Beckett, a servant of the fightin’ Jesus. It was only later in life, and my further reading of the scripture I realized how really great our saint for today was.

Other than the “doubting” episode, Thomas only speaks two other times in scripture, of all the Apostles Thomas was the only one ready to die with Jesus when Christ went back to Judea on the death of Lazarus (John 11:16). In fact it is stated in the Gospel of John as a matter of fact, really, from Thomas, as the others advise Jesus not to go as he will be killed Tom says bravely: "Let us also go, that we may die with him." And again, Jesus had just explained that he was going away to prepare a heavenly home for his followers, and that one day they would join him there. Thomas was upset at the idea of Jesus leaving them and so reacted by saying, "Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" Even at the “doubting Thomas” scene, Our Saint was the first of the Apostles to declare Jesus God: “Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:28)

I believe Thomas was a very loyal but matter of fact person. He so loved Jesus, and was so miserable after the crucifixion, he didn’t want to believe in false hope, and in fact he didn’t want to live without Our Lord. He needed to see Jesus again to bring him back from despair. So when the risen Lord finally appeared to Thomas it was an act of healing and kindness….not a rebuke. But we call him the doubter, which is really just a little better than the Betrayer…and the kids in Our Lady of Solace looked at me with disgust.

His name was probably really Judas, one of three Apostles with that name. He may have borne a strong resemblance to Jesus physically, so he is called Thomas which means “Twin”. He is the only Apostle, including Paul who was a missionary outside the Roman Empire. He preached in Parthia, Persia and India. To this day he is particularly venerated in India. An old tradition says that Thomas baptized the wise men from the Nativity into Christianity.

There are non-canonical Infancy gospels attributed to Thomas which are pretty funny actually, among other things they depict a precocious young Jesus making birds out of clay and then giving them life and having them fly away to everyone’s astonishment. Although the Church rejects the birds out of clay story it is also recounted in the Koran….what we flush down the sewer, they put on their mantelpiece.

He offered to build a palace for an Indian king that would last forever; the king gave him money, which Thomas promptly gave away to the poor; he explained that the palace he was building was in heaven, not on earth. Because of this, and his building of Churches in general he is the patron Saint of builders and architects (and men named Art Vandalay).

He was martyred by being stabbed with a spear c.72 while praying on a hill in Mylapur, India

He was originally buried near the site of his death, later his relics were moved to Edessa, Mesopotamia, eventually they came to rest in Ortona, Italy in the 13th century.

In sum, I am now proud to be his namesake…..

Patronage
•against blindness
•against doubt
•architects
•blind people
•builders
•construction workers
•Ceylon
•East Indies
•geometricians
•India
•masons
•Pakistan
•people in doubt
•Sri Lanka
•stone masons
•stonecutters
•surveyors
Vandalay Industries

Reading from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas;

Chapter III.

1 Now Jesus made of that clay twelve sparrows: and it was the Sabbath day. And a child ran and told Joseph, saying: Behold, thy child playeth about the brook, and hath made sparrows of the clay, which is not lawful. 2 And he when he heard it went and said to the child: Wherefore doest thou so and profaneth the Sabbath? But Jesus answered him not, but looked upon the sparrows and said: Go ye, take your flight, and remember me in your life. And at the word they took flight and went up into the air. And when Joseph saw it he was astonished.