“My Lord and my God!”
Acts 5:12-16; Rev 1:9-11a,12-13,17-19; Jn
20:19-31 (2 / Easter/ C) Divine Mercy)
I lay down to rest and I slept; but I
rose again, for the Lord upheld me. Alleluia.
The Apostle Thomas had two great virtues. They are that
he refused to say that he understood what he did not understand, first, and
second, that he believed what he did not believe. There is an uncompromising
honesty about him. He would never still his doubts by pretending that they did
not exist. He was not the kind of man who would rattle off a creed without
understanding what it was all about. We do not know for sure what happened to
Thomas in the after days, but there is an apocryphal book called “The Acts of
Thomas” which purports to give his history. It is, of course, only a legend,
but there may well be some history beneath the legend, and certainly in it
Thomas is true to character. Here is part of the story that it tells.
After the death of Jesus, the disciples divided up
the world among them, so that each might go to some country to preach the
gospel. India fell a lot to Thomas. (The Thomist Church in South India does
trace its origin to him) At first, he refused to go, saying that he was not
strong enough for the long journey. He said: “I am a Hebrew man; how can I go
amongst the Indians and preach the truth?” Jesus appeared to him by night and
said: “Fear not, Thomas, go thou unto India and preach the word there, for my grace
is with thee.” But Thomas still stubbornly refused. “Where you would send me,
send me,” he said, “but elsewhere, for unto the Indians I will not go.”
It so happened that there had come a certain merchant
from India to Jerusalem called Abbanes. He had been sent by King Gundaphorus to
find a skilled carpenter and to bring him back to India, and Thomas was a
carpenter. Jesus came up to Abbanes in the marketplace and said to him: “Would
you buy a carpenter?” Abbanes said: “Yes.” Jesus said, “I have a slave that is
a carpenter, and I desire to sell him,” and he pointed at Thomas in the
distance. So, they agreed on a price and Thomas was sold, and the agreement
ran: “I, Jesus, the son of Joseph the carpenter, acknowledge that I have sold
my slave, Thomas by name, unto thee Abbanes, a merchant of Gundaphorus, king of
the Indians.” When the deed was drawn up, Jesus found Thomas and took him to
Abbanes. Abbanes said: “Is this your
master?” Thomas said: “Indeed, he is.” Abbanes said, “I have bought you from
him.” And Thomas said nothing. But in the morning, he rose early and prayed,
and after his prayer, he said to Jesus: “I will go wherever you send, Lord
Jesus, your will be done.” It is the same old Thomas, slow to be sure, slow to
surrender; but once his surrender is made, it is complete.
The story goes on to tell how Gundaphorus commanded
Thomas to build a palace, and Thomas said that he was well able to do so. The
king gave him plenty of money to buy materials and hire workmen, but Thomas
gave it all away to the poor. He always told the king that the palace was
rising steadily. The king was suspicious. In the end, he sent for Thomas: “Have
you built me the palace?” he demanded. Thomas answered: “Yes.” “When shall we
go and see it?” asked the king. Thomas answered: “You can not see it now, but
when you depart this life, then you shall see it.” At first, the king was very
angry and Thomas was in danger of his life; but in the end, the king too was
won for Christ, and so Thomas brought Christianity to India.
There is something very lovable and very admirable
about Thomas. Faith was never an easy thing for him. Obedience never came
readily to him. He was the man who had to be sure. He was the man who had to
count the cost. But once he was sure, and once he had counted the cost, he was
the man who went to the ultimate limit of faith and obedience. A faith like
Thomas' is better than any glib profession. And obedience like his is better than an easy
acquiescence which agrees to do a thing without counting the cost and then goes
back upon its word.
“Your real life is Christ”
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