Occasionally some people in their personal spiritual talk tell me how awful they felt because they doubted if God really loved them and if God ever bothered to hear their prayers. Some consider it even a sin to let such thoughts cross their minds. On July 3, Christians all over the world, but particularly in Kerala, celebrate the feast of St. Thomas, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus, also generally known as the “doubting Thomas”. It is believed that after Jesus’ ascension into heaven, Thomas carried on the work of spreading his gospel eastwards and landed in AD 52 on the Malabar Coast.
No wonder then that many Indian Christians boast to their counterparts in Western countries that Christianity not only arrived in India before it did there but also that one of the prominent 12 apostles put his seal on it. From Kerala, Thomas went eastwards and was martyred in Mylapore, part of Chennai today. Thomas is referred to in John’s Gospel. Once when Jesus planned to return to a region called Judaea, his disciples warned him against it as some religious leaders there wanted to stone him to death because of his new message about God’s fatherhood and love. But Thomas boldly declared, “Let us also go that we may die with him.” Again during the Last Supper, a scene made famous by Da Vinci’s painting, when Jesus said, “I will come again and will take you (disciples) to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas asked him, “How can we know the way?” Jesus replied him, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
The best-known event in his life is the one from which the phrase “doubting Thomas” developed. When the risen Christ appeared to his disciples, Thomas was not present. When the disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord,” he replied, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” The gospel tells us that eight days later Jesus appeared to them again and told Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
We find ourselves sometimes in Thomas’ shoes, not only doubting certain aspects of God’s presence in our life but at times even his existence. Should we be mortified with such thoughts? Thomas’ life and the lives of many saints in fact show us that God besides putting up with our doubts is always prepared to meet us halfway to confirm us in our doubts and anxieties, provided we are open to it.
