On the new calendar, July 3 is the feast of St. Thomas Didymus, the glorious apostle and martyr, better known to the world—alas—as “Doubting Thomas.”
I’d like to say a few words in his defense.
First of all, he’s not quite the arch-skeptic we make him out to be. The fact that we find him in the upper room with the rest of Jesus’s followers means that Thomas has basically kept the faith.
No doubt he’s baffled by what’s happened. But so are the rest of the Apostles. Jesus repeatedly warned them that He was going to be killed, but it didn’t sink in. (Mark 9:31-32) Still, once He’s dead and buried, they remain true to Him. Think of how Mary Magdalene begged the “gardener” to give her the body of Jesus. We can just picture her sitting on the ground, utterly heartbroken, sobbing like a child. “They have taken my Lord away.”
She doesn’t understand what’s going on. None of them do. But she still love Jesus. All of them do.
Anyway, Mary goes back to the upper room and tells everyone what’s happened. Shortly thereafter, Jesus appears to some more of His disciples. They go to Thomas and corroborate Mary’s story. Thomas wants to believe, but it’s all so strange! Why is Jesus just popping up every couple of days and then vanishing again? If He really has come back, why didn’t He show himself to His followers all at once?
And when He does appear, He just wishes everyone peace. Why doesn’t He do something? Why doesn’t He at least tell them to do something? What’s with all the shilly-shallying?
Finally, after listening to his friends go on and on, Thomas blurts out: “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands, and put my finger where the nails have been, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe.”
Clearly, though, he wants to believe. If not, he would have gone back to Galilee days ago. He wouldn’t be moping around in an AirBNB with the members of this cult whose leader was just executed. He wants so badly to be proven wrong.
A few more days pass. The first Christians are still staying together in the upper room, as they have been since the Last Supper, because… well, they have no idea what else to do.
Thomas is half-expected something like this to happen (more than half, probably). And then it does. Suddenly, Jesus is there in the midst of them. And the first thing He does is walk up to Thomas and says, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.”
Imagine all the thoughts swirling around in Thomas’s mind. If it were me, I’d want to plead with Christ, like Peter. “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I believe in thee.” But not Thomas. He doesn’t try to justify himself. He is (as the song says) lost in wonder, love, and praise. And so he cries out, “My Lord and my God!”
For whatever it’s worth, this is the first instance in all of Scripture of a someone explicitly affirming the divinity of Christ. Thomas is remembered as a skeptic, when in fact he’s the first trinitarian.
St. Thomas the Apostle, ora pro nobis.
Friends, some good news: I’ve been asked to join The American Conservative’s masthead as a contributing editor. It’s a huge honor, for which I’m deeply grateful. It comes with a weekly column, which will appear on TAC’s website every Thursday.
I’ll do my best to get this newsletter out every Friday. I really do enjoy writing it. I love having this direct line to my readers, where we can talk about anything we want. (And I really do enjoy hearing from you. If you’d like to be in touch, my email is on the About page.)
Anyway, it really is an honor. TAC gave me my first real break in American journalism.
Two years ago, a very powerful Beltway conservative—one who loves to go on about “cancel culture”—demanded that TAC remove an article I wrote about António de Oliveira Salazar. They refused. They stood by me, even though I was (am) a nonentity. It never occurred to them to do otherwise. You rarely see that kind of courage and loyalty these days. Certainly not in the media.
That’s all for this week. Peace and the Good!