Feast of Saint Thomas, Apostle

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/070312.cfm

Given half a chance they'll overrun the highway. 

Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

In the Gospel of Saint John, Jesus makes many declarations about his identity:

• I am the light of the world
• I am he, (the Messiah) the one who is speaking with you.
• I am the bread of life
• I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.
• I am not alone, but it is I and the Father who sent me.
• For if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”
• you will realize that I am, and that I do nothing on my own,
• I am the gate for the sheep
• I am the good shepherd
• I am the Son of God
• The Father is in me and I am in the Father.
• I am the resurrection and the life
• You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am
• From now on I am telling you before it happens so that when it happens you may believe that I am.
• I am the way, the truth and the life.
• I am in the Father and the Father is in me.
• I am with you
• I am the true vine and my father is the vine grower
• When he said to them, “I am,” they turned away and fell to the ground.

“I am” is, of course, God’s name. The Tetragrammaton (YHWH) is often translated as “I am who am.” If Jesus never says precisely, “I am God.” it’s because that simplification would not do justice to the truth. It would obscure his relationship to the Father and the Holy Spirit.

With the closing words of John’s original text, we hear Saint Thomas make his astonished exclamation and his astonishing declaration, “My Lord and my God!” His statement completes the gospel. It is a beautiful truth.

Too often, we fail to see the Beauty of Truth, but if it is not beautiful it is probably not true. When the young John Keats declared at the end of his Ode on a Grecian Urn,

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

he declared his own rebellion against the dry, lifeless theology that had overtaken both sides of the Protestant/Catholic reformation. The Romantic Movement attempted to rekindle the joy of life as the Industrial Revolution transformed human labor into a commodity and human beings into consumers.

Fortunately, scientists today often acknowledge the beauty of their discoveries even as they confess the limits of their methodology. Many doctors of every science have surrendered their claim of infallibility and regained their appreciation of Beauty and Truth.

Saint Thomas, in a moment of ecstatic realization, saw God standing before him and acknowledged the Truth that had overwhelmed his skepticism. Twelve centuries later Saint Francis of Assisi, who could read and write only haltingly, would again revive the dry science of theology with his own exclamation, Deus Meus et Omnia – “My God and my All!”

The saints invite us to know God as our dearest and most beautiful Truth. Jesus is indeed our way, truth and life – and Lord of all those other fascinating words.