The Traditional Catholic Liturgy
Adapted from various sources.
Feast of Saint Thomas, Apostle (December 21)
This is the last Feast the Church keeps before the great one of the Nativity of Her Lord and Spouse.
She interrupts the Greater Ferias in order to pay Her tribute to St. Thomas, the Apostle of Christ, whose glorious
martyrdom has consecrated this twenty-first day of December, and has procured for the Christian people a powerful patron,
who will introduce them to the Divine Babe of Bethlehem. To none of the Apostles could this day have been so fittingly
assigned as to St. Thomas. It was St. Thomas who we needed; St. Thomas, whose festal patronage would aid us to believe
and hope in that God Whom we see not, and Who comes to us in silence and humility in order to try our faith.
His Feast comes when the darkness of night is longest, reminding us that, of all the Apostles, the faith of St. Thomas
was the most darkened by doubt after the Crucifixion. It also reminds us that this Apostle, after the Ascension of Our Lord,
was sent to lands more deeply steeped in the darkness of infidelity.
St. Thomas was probably a Galilean fisherman. If he appears to have been slow in understanding and unlearned,
he made up for this by the candor and simplicity of his heart, and the ardor of his piety and desires.
Of this he gave a proof when Jesus was going up to the neighborhood of Jerusalem in order to raise Lazarus to life,
where the priests and Pharisees were plotting His death. The rest of the Apostles endeavored to dissuade Him from that
journey, saying, Rabbi, just now the Jews were seeking to stone Thee; and dost Thou go there again?
But St. Thomas said to his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with Him
(John 11: 8, 16)—
so ardent was his love of his Divine Master, even before the descent of the Holy Ghost. When Our Lord at His Last Supper
acquainted His disciples that He was about to leave them, but told them for their comfort that He was going to prepare
a place for them in His Father’s house, St. Thomas, who vehemently desire to follow Him, said, Lord, we do not know
where Thou art going, and how can we know the way?
Christ presently rectified his misapprehension by returning
this short but satisfactory answer: I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through Me
(John 14: 5-6).
After Our Lord had suffered, was risen from the dead, and on the same day had appeared to His disciples to
convince them of the truth of His resurrection, St. Thomas, not having been with them on that occasion,
refused to believe their report that He was truly risen, presuming that it was only a phantom, or mere apparition,
unless he might see the very print of the nails, and feel the wounds in His hands and side. On the octave day,
our merciful Lord, with infinite condescension to this Apostle's weakness, presented Himself again, when he and
his colleagues were assembled together, probably for prayer. After the usual salutation of Peace be to you,
He turned to St. Thomas, and bid him look upon His hands, and put his finger into the hole in His side,
and into the prints of the nails.
It is observed by St. Augustine and others, that St. Thomas had sinned by obstinacy, presumption, and infidelity;
however it was not a sin of malice, and the mercy of our Redeemer not only brought him to saving repentance,
but also raised him to the summit of holy charity and perfect virtue. St. Thomas was no sooner convinced of
the reality of the mystery, but, penetrated with compunction, awe, and tender love, he cried out, My Lord and my God!
(John 20: 28) Prostrating to Jesus all the powers of his soul, he acknowledged Him the only and sovereign
Lord of his heart, and the sole object of all his affections. Nothing is more easy than to repeat these words;
but to pronounce them with a sincere and perfect disposition is a privilege reserved to those who are crucified
to the world, and in whose affections God only reigns by His pure and perfect love.
St. Thomas was once guilty of doubting, when he ought to have believed, and learnt the necessity of faith
only by the sad experience of incredulity: he comes then most appropriately to defend us, by the power of his examples
and prayers, against the temptations which proud human reason might excite within us. Let us pray to him with confidence.
In that Heaven of light and vision, where his repentance and love have placed him, he will intercede for us,
and gain for us that docility of mind and heart, which will enable us to see and recognize Him, Who is the Expected of nations,
and Who, though the King of the world, will give no other signs of His majesty, than the swaddling-clothes and tears of a Babe.
But let us first read the acts of our Holy Apostle. The Church has deemed it prudent to give us them in an
exceedingly abridged form, which contains only the most reliable facts, gathered from authentic sources;
and thus She excludes all those details, which have not sufficient historical authority.
St. Thomas the Apostle, who was also called Didymus, was a Galilean. After he had received the Holy Ghost,
he traveled through many provinces, preaching the Gospel of Christ. He taught the principles of Christian Faith and
practice to the Parthians, Medes, Persians, Hircanians, and Bactrians. He finally went to the Indies, and instructed
the inhabitants of those countries in the Christian religion. Up to the last, he gained for himself the esteem of all
men by the holiness of his life and teaching and by the wonderful miracles he wrought. He stirred up, also, in their hearts,
the love of Jesus Christ. The king of those parts, a worshiper of idols, was, on the contrary, only the more irritated by
all these things. He condemned the Saint to be pierced to death by javelins; which punishment was inflicted at Calamina,
and gave St. Thomas the highest honor of his apostolate, the crown of martyrdom.
The Church announces to us today, in Her Office of Lauds:
Fear not: for on the fifth day, Our Lord will come unto you.
O glorious Apostle Thomas, who didst lead to Christ so many unbelieving nations, hear now the prayers of
the faithful, who beseech thee to lead them to that same Jesus, Who, in five days, will have shown Himself to His Church.
That we may merit to appear in His divine presence, we need, before all other graces, the light which leads to Him.
That light is faith; pray, then, that we may have faith. Heretofore, our Savior had compassion on thy weakness,
and deigned to remove from thee the doubt of His having risen from the grave; pray to Him for us, that He will
mercifully come to our assistance, and make Himself felt by our heart. We ask not, O holy Apostle, to see Him
with the eyes of our body, but with those of our Faith; for He said to thee, when He showed Himself to thee:
Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed!
Of this happy number we desire to be.
We beseech thee, therefore, pray that we may obtain the faith of the heart and will, that so,
when we behold the Divine Infant wrapped in swaddling-clothes and laid in a manger, we may cry out: My Lord, and my God!
Pray, O Holy Apostle, for the nations thou didst evangelize, but which have fallen back again into the
shades of death. May the day soon come, when the Sun of Justice will once more shine upon them.
Bless the efforts of those apostolic men, who have devoted their labors and their very lives to the
work of the missions; pray that the days of darkness may be shortened, and that the countries,
which were watered by thy blood, may at length see that kingdom of God established amongst them,
which thou didst preach to them, and for which we also are in waiting.
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