Today, as we celebrate the Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle, we are drawn into one of the most honest and human encounters recorded in the Gospels—a moment of doubt, a moment of revelation, and a moment of deep, personal faith. Never do we find the other apostles, or Thomas himself trying to conceal the fact that even the best of them had to work through their doubts, like all of us.
Thomas is often remembered with the label "doubting," but he is therefore one of the most relatable apostles. He was absent in the moment when Christ appeared. And when his fellow disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord,” he responded not with cynicism but with a cry from a heart that wanted certainty. “Unless I see... unless I touch...” These are the words not of someone happy with disbelief but of one yearning for real communion with the Lord whom he loved. For this reason, Thomas longed to meet the Risen Lord himself, not just hear of Him secondhand.
Jesus does not shame him for this desire. He meets Thomas where he is. A week later, locked doors do not stop Jesus from entering the room, nor do closed hearts stop Him from speaking peace. He invites Thomas, gently, to do exactly what he had demanded—to touch, to see, and to believe. And in that moment, Thomas gives one of the most profound confessions of faith in the entire Gospel: “My Lord and my God!”
This is the paradox of doubt in the life of faith: it can be destructive if clung to stubbornly, but it can also lead us to a more personal and transformative encounter with the truth. Doubt, when honestly engaged, can drive us deeper. It can open the door to questions we have never asked, to answers we never expected, and to a faith we did not know we were capable of.
Saint Thomas shows us that faith is not merely the absence of questions, but the courage to bring our questions to Christ. He shows us that the wounds of Jesus are not just symbols of suffering, but places where the doubting heart can find rest. He also reminds us that we must not become hardened in doubt, unwilling to believe even when the truth is before us. Christ answers the honest seeker, but He also calls us beyond what is merely seen. “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
In our first reading, Paul reminds the Ephesians—and us—that we are “no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the holy ones.” The household of God is not built upon blind faith, but upon the solid foundation of the apostles—yes, even the apostle who doubted. That means that in the Church, there is room for the seeker, for the wounded, for the questioning heart. But there must also be growth. Like Thomas, we must move from “unless I see” to “my Lord and my God.”
Let us not be discouraged if we sometimes struggle to believe. Let us not fear if questions arise in our hearts. But let us also not be obstinate or closed when the Lord gently comes through the locked doors of our hearts and invites us to trust. Faith is not a quick fix—it is a relationship. It grows when we allow Jesus to show Himself to us, especially in His wounds: in the wounds of others, in the wounds of the Church, even in our own. God can speak to us through our pain.
So on this feast of Saint Thomas, let us bring to Christ whatever doubts may still linger in us. Let us place them in His wounds. And then let us echo the apostle’s confession—not only with our lips, but with our lives: My Lord and my God. – my Everything! Be with us, always.
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