Detail from Caravaggio, The Incredulity of St Thomas
It’s the first anniversary of my consecration as a bishop! Consecrations are supposed only to happen on Saints’ Days, and “my” saint was Thomas. Appropriate enough for a Thomson – and perhaps too for someone who can’t always resist the urge to poke at things (see above…). One of my biggest learning curves as a bishop has been to stop fiddling and trying to fix things and offer the Good News and the Spirit instead and see what they bring into being. It’s pretty scary, but I love it!
The Romans and ourselves remember Thomas on the day on which his relics are believed to have been translated from Mylapore, near Chennai (Madras) in India to Edessa in Mesopotamia.
It was to a land of dark people he was sent, to clothe them by Baptism in white robes. His grateful dawn dispelled India’s painful darkness. It was his mission to espouse India to the One-Begotten. The merchant is blessed for having so great a treasure. Edessa thus became the blessed city by possessing the greatest pearl India could yield. Thomas works miracles in India, and at Edessa Thomas is destined to baptize peoples perverse and steeped in darkness, and that in the land of India. Hymns of St. Ephraem, edited by Lamy (Ephr. Hymni et Sermones, IV).
I’m inclined to put the core fact of Thomas’s travel to India into the pot marked history rather than myth, but it’s hard to be sure. Rather a lot of what circulated in Thomas’ name or about him strains our credulity never mind his. One of the most curious is an unexpected answer to the question, “Who was the other Twin?” (since Thomas is called Didymus, the Twin – and in fact Tau’ma in Aramaic is linked to or puns on T’oma, the Aramaic for Twin, anway). The unexpected answer: Jesus, of course – in the Book of Thomas the Contender, part of the Nag Hammadi library: "Now, since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself…"
For me a simple take-home message is can I not just poke at Jesus, or even just follow him, but become like him – a sort of Twin – so that as I visit the churches and chapels and communities and colleges of the diocese it’s not just my touch that’s felt, but His.
Collect of the Day
Almighty and eternal God,
who, for the firmer foundation of our faith,
allowed your holy apostle Thomas
to doubt the resurrection of your Son
till word and sight convinced him:
grant to us, who have not seen, that we also may believe
and so confess Christ as our Lord and our God;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Filed under: Celebrating the Saints, Christianity , Bishops
