THE WORD AND THE SAINT
It is always a special grace given that a person is concretely offered a proof for his or her faith. Otherwise faith is a personal experience that is inspired within a person and expressed in daily life. Thomas, the Apostle occasions an event that became an unforgettable experience for even the rest of the apostles, and for the entire believing community.
Apart from focusing on the fact that Thomas doubted and hesitated to go by others' experience, his awe and total acceptance of the Master is a great inspiration for us. That statement he makes, My Lord and My God, was a such a spiritually mature statement that could not have come merely on the spur of the moment. It is definitely a relationship that Thomas shared with Jesus, a conviction he grew in and a declaration that summarised his faith experience.
Thomas excels in taking the belief in Jesus to the next level, as he addresses Jesus for the first time as "God"! Till then they called Jesus, Master, Rabbi, Teacher, and even Lord...but it is from the heart of St. Thomas that we hear for the first time within the Gospels, Jesus being addressed, God. That was the sign of the faith maturity that was coming into the community of believers. It is a maturation of their perosnal experience of the person of Jesus!
The call for us today, is to become aware of our personal experience with Jesus the Christ - we may have a hundred definitions of who Jesus was and is, from varied sources and documents. But what matters most is, that one experience, that one personal definition that you have for the person of Christ. That is why Jesus insisted with his apostles at times: "but who do YOU say that I am?"
May St. Thomas, the holy apostle of faith, inspire us to yearn for more and more personal experiences with the person of Christ, that we may more and more mature to exclaim from the depth of our own hearts: my Lord and my God!
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