FEAST OF SAINT THOMAS, THE APOSTLE
Friday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Bible Text: “My Lord and my God”. Matthew 9.1-8
There are certainly many doubts that people might have by this time of pandemic. Typically, we might ask if God is real why did He allow this pandemic to strike us. People are dying, people are losing jobs, world economy is rapidly collapsing, vaccine is not yet discovered and so on and so forth. We doubt not just the existence of God but as well as His power to take control of the situation. The church is even being challenged and we in the church are doing our very best to convince that there is indeed God and we will surely prevail in due time.
We are celebrating the feast of Saint Thomas, an apostle of the Lord. He is also popularly known as the doubting apostle because he strongly challenged his fellow disciple that unless he put his finger into the marks of the wounds of Jesus, he will not believe. A week later, he was with his fellow apostles and on that very moment Jesus Christ once appeared to them. This apparition is solely focused on him. His wish was granted. Jesus gave him a chance to put his finger in His wounds and was extremely filled with awe. Jesus convinced him to doubt no more but believe. With such rare opportunity to witness the risen Lord, he was able to exclaim, My Lord and my God. It was not just an ascent of his mind to the truth he personally discovered but it was an act of faith of total surrender to Jesus Christ that he eventually died like his master as a martyr.
Faith is the assurance that the things revealed and promised in the Word are true, even though unseen, and gives the believer a conviction that what he expects in faith, will come to pass. In other words, it becomes so tangible that you now possess it. This is the very meaning of Jesus challenge to Thomas, faith is not an act of believing of what we have seen but believing that someday God will fulfil or reveal what we are hoping for. We firmly believe that God is greater than covid- 19. He has tremendous power to wash away this pandemic from the face of the earth. However, we have to be aware that God is not working in our own time but in His time. God makes all things beautiful, in His time. We have to trust that He more power than just to eradicate the virus but to life us up from sinfulness.
This first Friday, we will once again have an hour of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. The words of Thomas the apostle are the very words we say every time we receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist “MY LORD AND MY GOD”. Faith is our firm resolve to unceasingly pray even when seems there is no hope.