Today our Synod (together with Lutherans worldwide and Western Rite Orthodox and Anglicans) commemorates St. Thomas, the Twin, the disciple who doubted, and whose doubt was healed by Christ a week after the original Easter. The whole story is told in the wonderful hymn: "O Sons and Daughters of the King!"When Thomas first the tidings heard
That they had seen the risen Lord,
He doubted the disciples' word. Alleluia.
"My pierced side, O Thomas, see,
And look upon My hands, My feet;
Not faithless but believing be." Alleluia!
No longer Thomas then denied;
He saw the feet, the hands, the side;
"You are my Lord and God!" he cried. Alleluia!
How blest are they who have not seen
And yet whose faith has constant been,
For they eternal life shall win. Alleluia! (LSB 471:5-8)
The collect rejoices that God strengthened Thomas with firm and certain faith in the resurrection, and asks that we may be given such faith also and so never be found wanting in God's sight. St. Thomas' Day, falling so close to Christmas as it always does, reminds us that in the days to come we must press beyond what we see to what God reveals about what we see. We see a Child, lying in the manger, nursing at his mother's breast. But faith, which is the certainty of what is not seen, assures us that this Child is indeed "my Lord and my God" - the One through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made that has been made; that this Child is the Life and Light of men that shines into the darkness; that in Him we meet and embrace a Forgiveness greater than all our sin and a Life stronger than all our death.
And St. Thomas and the Nativity tie together in another way. For at the consecration when He comes to us again in the Body born of Mary and the Blood poured out on the tree - the very Body Thomas touched - it is an ancient and salutary practice to confess with St. Thomas at the elevation: "My Lord and my God."
3 comments:
Don't forget that Catholics of the Roman Rite who use the traditional Latin liturgy also commemorate St Thomas on this date.
Joshua,
Thanks for the info. I didn't realize that ANY Roman Catholics still observed it. I thought the Vatican II change in the calendar was mandatory for all Latin rite Catholics. Does this come with with the permission to use the old Mass instituted on September 14th? I am glad to hear it.
The old Mass has its own calendar and corresponding lectionary (all in the one Missal), and so if used at all, it has to be used on the traditional dates (this applies to Sundays too - the old system has Sundays after Epiphany and after Pentecost, and also Septuagesima, etc., whereas the new has a completely different system).
Though in practice much restricted since 1969, it has been used without a break by groups throughout the Roman Rite, and has now been declared never-suppressed, and given much wider play.
(I assume something similar has happened in Lutheran spheres since liturgical tinkering really took off in the 1960's - people tend to resist 'the baby being thrown out with the bathwater', especially when the more 'modern' alternative, despite many good points, also has banal, ineffective parts.)
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