Feast of Saint Thomas, Apostle

Feast of Saint Thomas, Apostle

JN 20:24-29

Story of Nurse and Doctors who were working in a hospital….

Faith, a divine gift, is the beacon that guides us through life's trials, transforming our struggles into triumphs.

Many people are blessed with great faith in God, whom we have not seen with our own eyes. But the question is, did Thomas truly see God with his own eyes?

Saint Gregory the Great, pope, comments what Thomas saw and what he believed were different things. God cannot be seen by mortal man. Thomas saw a human being, whom he acknowledged to be God, and said: My Lord and my God. Seeing, he believed; looking at one who was true man, he cried out that this was God, the God he could not see. He saw Jesus glorified, but Thomas actually did have a leap of faith. From unbelieving Thomas, he reached the highest level of faith. He professes the highest Christological faith in the New Testaments, which even our beloved St. Paul did not do. St. Paul professed Jesus as Christ more than 150 times and Jesus as the savior and the redeemer, but he never professed Jesus as God. The God Thomas professed is the God the Israelites have been worshiping; I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The only true God.

Just as Thomas was blessed with a profound faith in God, we too are all blessed with the same faith in a God we have not seen with our physical eyes. God has given us the eyes of faith, enabling us to believe in what we cannot see. This shared faith is what brings us together today.

May each and every one of us be blessed with our faith in a Jesus whom we see by the eye of faith. May Thomas's profession, “My Lord and my God!”!”, become our profession, and the blessed words of Jesus become ours.

So, what must we do when we are blessed with our faith?

St. Gregory said “we hold in our hearts one we have not seen in the flesh. The true believer practices what he believes, and true believers put to work what he believes. As St. James says, Faith without works is dead.

As we approach the Eucharist at this Altar, let us believe what we celebrate and practice what we believe.

May we behold the Eucharist, which is truly and substantially the Body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and our God. When he is elevated, we may together profess what Thomas did: "My Lord and my God." This is because the Eucharist we are about to receive is our Lord and our God.

May God bless us all.