On the Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle, December 21, 2024

Saint Thomas the Apostle plays a role in every offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Yes, his name appears in the Roman Canon as an alter Christus prepares to bring God down in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity on an altar of Sacrifice under the appearance of bread and wine. Each and every single one of us utters the words of Saint Thomas when we see the Host and Chalice elevated by a true priest at their respective consecrations: Dominus meus et Deus Meus, My Lord and my God. 

It is, of course, quite appropriate that we utter the words of Saint Thomas as the greatest miracle on earth takes place day in and day out, the Transubstantiation of the elements of this earth into the very Body. Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in Our Lady's virginal and immaculate womb. Saint Thomas did not believe that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had risen from the dead on Easter Sunday until he had put his fingers in the nail prints on Our Lord's hands and feet and pressed his hand in Our Lord's wounded side. It was then that He uttered the words that we ourselves during the Consecrations of the Host and Chalice, Dominus meus et Deus Meus. Saint Thomas had seen and believed. We see Our Lord only under the appearance of the elements of the earth, believing by Faith that He is indeed present in every particle of the Host and every drop of the wine that have been miraculously Transubstantiated into Himself. Saint Thomas thus plays a vital role each time we assist at Holy Mass.

Although Saint Thomas doubted Our Lord's Resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday, he became a bold proclaimer of the Gospel of His Divine Master once the God the Holy Ghost descended in tongues of flame upon him and the other Apostles and our dear Blessed Mother on Pentecost Sunday in the same Upper Room in Jerusalem where he had been ordained to the fullness of the priesthood, the episcopate. Having pressed his flesh into the Flesh of Our Lord, Saint Thomas enfleshed Our Lord every time he offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass himself, receiving the unmerited privilege of not only touching Our Lord anew but being fed by Him to nourish his soul unto eternity. Having doubted Our Lord's Resurrection, Saint Thomas became the instrument by which many thousands upon thousands of others would come to believe in Him without having seen Him in the flesh themselves.

The force of Saint Thomas's preaching, which included his own recounting of his initial disbelief in Our Lord's Easter victory over sin and eternal death that He had won on the Holy Cross on Good Friday, was such that pagan peoples in lands far distant from his native Galilee begged him to baptize them with urgency. Yes, you see, Saint Thomas, one of the first twelve bishops of the Catholic Church, was in the business of proselytizing unbelievers and converting them to be Catholics.

Saint Thomas did not want anyone on earth to persist in the unbelief that had manifested itself in his own life when he heard the other Apostles speaking about Our Lord's Resurrection. He wanted everyone to have belief in and access to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament so that they could be sharers in eternal glory in Heaven. He wanted everyone to have their mortal sins forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance, which was instituted by Our Lord at the moment that Saint Thomas was absent from the place where the other Apostles were hiding for fear of the Jews. He wanted to make sure that He took seriously Our Lord's parting words before He Ascended to the Father's right hand in glory: to go and to preach the Gospel everywhere, baptizing all men in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." He worked many miracles in his lifetime. He has worked them ever since, including stopping the floodwaters of the tsunami last year at the steps of the church in India that bears his name and is thus under his holy patronage. The "Thomas" Catholics in India trace their lineage directly to the Apostle himself.

The "doubting Thomas" became a "twin" of Christ. That is, Saint Thomas the Apostle, to whom I pray every day as the first in the line of Saint Thomases I count as my patrons (Saints Thomas a Becket, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas More, and Thomas Villanova are the others), sought to be like Our Lord in every way imaginable. A venerable Catholic priest who bore his name nearly fourteen centuries later, Thomas a Kempis, wrote his incomparable Imitation of Christ to explain how we must imitate Our Lord in every way at all times, especially in the smallest of things. Our Lord's "twin," Saint Thomas the Apostle, fully imitated Our Lord to the point of his being immolated in India because he dared to convert souls to the true Faith. We must, therefore, pray to Saint Thomas the Apostle so that he will help us to be "twins," if you will, of Our Lord, willing to die to self to such an extent that we will have the same apostolic zeal for souls as he did as he traversed to distant lands to speak of the Holy Name of Jesus Christ no matter what it might cost him, including his life.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B.'s, hagiography of my principal patron saint, Saint Thomas the Apostle, reminds us that this is the last feast on the General Roman Calendar before Christmas, although we in the United States of America have the privilege of celebrating the Feast of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, S.J., the first and thus far only American citizen to be canonized:

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 of honor to 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 that 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 whom 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. St. Thomas was once guilty of doubting, when he ought to have believed; and only learned the necessity of Faith by the sad experience of incredulity: he comes then most appropriately to defend us, by the power of his example 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 no historic authority.

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; then, pray that we may have Faith. Heretofore, our Saviour 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 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 evangelise, 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 labours 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. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle, December 21.)

Jacobus de Voragine's The Golden Legend tells of the episode that ultimately won Saint Thomas the Apostle the crown of holy martyrdom:

Next Thomas went to Upper India and gained fame by his many miracles. He brought the light of faith to Syntice, who was a friend of Migdomia, the wife of Carisius, a cousin of the king. Migdomia asked Syntice: "Do you think I might see the apostle? Then, taking her friend's advice, she put off her rich garments and mingled with the poor women who were hearing the apostle's preaching. Thomas began to expound upon the misery of this life and said, among other things: "This is indeed a miserable life, subject to all sorts of misfortune, and so fleeting that when one things one has it well in hand, it slips away and is gone." Then he exhorted his hearers to receive the word of God gladly and offered four reasons, comparing the word to four kinds of things: to an eye-salve, because it enlightens the eyes of our intellect; to a potion, for it purifies and cleanses our will of all carnal love; to a plaster, because it heals the wounds of our sins; and to food, because it delights us with the love of the things of heaven. And just as these things can do no good to the ailing person unless he uses them well, so the word of God cannot benefit the ailing soul unless it is heard devoutly. Migdomia believed the apostles's preaching and thereafter shunned her husband's bed with horror. At this Carisius complained to the king and had Thomas thrown into prison. Migdomia visited him there and implored him to pardon her for being the cause of his plight; but he consoled her kindly and said that he was happy to bear all his suffering. Then Carisius asked the king to send the queen, his wife's sister, to his wife, hoping that she might bring Migdomia back to him. But the queen, carrying her mission, was converted by the very one she sought to lead astray; and seeing the great miracles the apostle performed, she said: "Those who refuse to believe so many signs and works are damned by God!" Meanwhile Thomas spoke briefly to all present on three points: they should love the Church, honor the priests, and come together gladly to hear the word of God.

When the queen returned home, the king asked her: "What kept you away so long?" The queen's answer was: "I thought Migdomia was stupid, but on the contrary she is very wise. She led me to the apostle of God and let me learn the way of truth. The really stupid ones are those will not believe in Christ!" And from then on she refused to lie with her husband. The king, dumbfounded, said to his brother-in-law: "I tried to get your wife back for you, and instead I have lost my own; she treats me worse that yours treats you!"

The king ordered the apostle to be brought before him, hands bound, and commanded him to counsel the wives to return to their husbands. The apostle proceeded to prove to the king, by three examples--a king, a tower, a spring of water--that as long as these men persisted in their error, the women must not do as commanded. "You," he said, "being a king, want no dirty servants around you, but only clean servingmen and handmaids. How much more surely should you believe that God loves chaste, clean servants? Am I wrong in preaching that God loves in his servants what you love in yours? I have raised a high tower, and you tell me, the builder, to tear it down? I have dug a deep well and brought up a flowing spring, and you tell me to shut it off?" (Archbishop Jacobus de Voragine, O.P., The Golden Legend.)

Saint Thomas was then subjected to a series of attempts to torture him, each of which was thwarted miraculously, before he was slain with a sword. He had given his life for the One Whose Resurrection he had initially doubted. His own disbelief became the cause of the belief of many in his own day and from his own day to our own day.

The incident that led up to Saint Thomas the Apostle's martyrdom contains a line from the queen who had tried to take her friend Migdomia out of the Faith: "The really stupid ones are those who will not believe in Christ!"

Yes, those who refuse to believe in Christ are the really stupid ones yet today. And to their ranks must be added those who say they believe in Our Lord but who don't trust His ineffable power enough to proclaim His Holy Name publicly or to make public advertence to the simple fact that every single element of human life, both individually and socially, must be completely and totally subordinated to the Deposit of Faith He has entrusted solely to the Catholic Church. To believe in Our Lord is to be as fearless before kings and potentates and, yes, even before television and radio talk show hosts, in professing unapologetically the Catholic Faith as was Saint Thomas before the king who ordered his execution.

Unlike Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who believes that doubt in God, in His Divine Revelation, in His Church, and even in His Divine Providence is “healthy,” Pope Saint Leo the Great reminds us that the doubt of Saint Thomas the Apostle is meant to fortify our own faith beyond all doubt the Holy Catholic Church excludes all doubt because she was founded by Our Lord Himself and is sustained by the working of God the Holy Ghost, who never leads souls in doubt:

Dearly beloved brethren, what is it in this passage which particularly claimeth our attention? Think ye that it was by accident that this chosen Apostle was not with them when Jesus came? or, when he came, heard? or, when he heard, doubted? or, when he doubted, felt? or when he had felt, believed? All these things were not accidental, but Providential. It was a wonderful provision of Divine mercy, that this incredulous disciple, by thrusting his fingers into the bodily Wounds of his Master, should apply a remedy to the spiritual wounds of unbelief in our souls. The doubts of Thomas have done us more good than the faith of all the disciples that believed. While he feeleth his way to faith, our minds are freed from doubt, and settled in faith. (Pope Leo the Great, Matins, the Divine Office, Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle.)

There is nothing “healthy” about doubting the Holy Catholic Faith or the efficacy of her true Sacramental rites to lead her children away from sin and thus to everlasting life in Heaven.

Yes, even in Saint Thomas the Apostle, you see, we find a contrast with the unbelief of the conciliar revolutionaries, including Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., composed a prayer to the Saint whose feast day is the last before Christmas Day almost everywhere except here in the United States, which celebrates the Feast of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini tomorrow, December 22, on the date set by Pope Pius XII himself for this country:

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; then, pray that we may have Faith. Heretofore, our Saviour 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 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 evangelise, 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 labours 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. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

Father Benedict Baur’s reflection on the O Antiphon for December 20, 2020, “O Key of David, explains that we are the captives who have been freed from slavery to satan and his wiles, and that Holy Mother Church has power from her Divine Founder, Invisible Head and Mystical Spouse to defeat “the false principles and errors that threaten her doctrines”:

O sublime majesty of the coming Redeemer! To him has been delivered the key, the government of the house of David (Isa. 22:22). Boundless is His power over the graces and privileges of the Church, over the souls and hearts and the wills of men. He holds the destiny of the Church in the palm of His hand. He is Master of the storms that arise to destroy the Church and the souls committed to her. He is capable of dealing with the false principles and the errors that threaten her doctrines. He has overcome the devil and his associates, the world, the flesh and its tribulations. To Him all power is given (Matt. 28:18), “He shall open and none shall shut” (Isa. 22:22). Against the power that is His all other forces are powerless. The destiny of souls and the government of the Church is placed in His hand. He is the Lord of all. O Key of David, I believe in Thy power; and in many difficult situations that confront the Church and my own soul, I place my trust in Thee. Come, lead the captives from their prison. With the key of His almighty power, the Redeemer has opened the prison in which poor, sinful man was languishing in darkness and in the shadow of death. Those who were held captive by Satan and by sin, who were degraded and dishonored, are now given the power to become the children of God. They are rescued from the beast who would degrade them; their good inclinations and desires are strengthened; and they are made a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Men were slaves of passion; they were bound and fettered by concupiscence of the eyes, the concupiscence of the flesh, and the pride of life.

Key of David, com and deliver the captives from their prison. The Church wishes that by the practice of virtue we should free ourselves from sin and unfaithfulness. She asks God that He may spare us from punishment, deliver us from His wrath, from an evil death, and from hell. The Church prays that Go may free us from a heart that clings to the world, from a spirit that is pleased with worldliness, from a human respect that degrades us. She urges to return kindness and affection for scorn, love and compassion for persecution. Our Holy Mother the Church prays that we may be delivered from ourselves, from our self-love, and from all our secret sins. She prays that God may detach our hearts from all that and bind them to earth for he who has been freed from the things of the earth is free with the freedom of Christ. (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume I, B. Herder Book Company, 1954. p. 83.)

We need to rescued from our own captivity to our sins and worldliness, to our disbelief in the power of God to vanquish those in civil power who promote evil under cover of the civil law and to utterly destroy the false conciliar religion that is being propagated with such wanton abandon by a figure of Antichrist, the octogenarian named Jorge Mario Bergoglio. 

Christmas Day is but four days after the Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle, less than that if one considers that the Christmas season starts with First Vespers December 24.

Apart from Our Lady and Saint Joseph, there were only a handful of shepherds and the Three Kings from the East who were given by God to know from angels the news of the Birth of the Saviour, Whose Sacred Divinity lay hidden beneath the bright, radiant beams emanating from His Holy Face. It took Faith to see that the newborn Babe in Bethlehem was God Incarnate. It takes Faith today to see Him in His Real Presence. It was that same Catholic Faith that prompted the one who doubted, Saint Thomas the Apostle, who baptized the Three Kings with his own hands, to risk all to remain faithful to the point of his dying breath.

May we, keeping company with Our Lady and beseeching her chaste spouse, Saint Joseph, in these final four days before Christmas, ever imitate the example of the "twin" of the Christ-Child, Saint Thomas the Apostle, by bringing the truths of the true Faith into the souls of the unbelievers who are lost in a world of doubt, misery, confusion, darkness, despair, and stupidity precisely because they do not believe in the Babe of Bethlehem as He has revealed Himself through the Catholic Church, especially by means of praying our Rosaries for such souls to convert.

To Saint Thomas the Apostle we pray, "I believe. Increase my Faith."

With Saint Thomas the Apostle we say, "Dominus meus et Deus Meus." Help us to spread belief in and devotion to Our Lord in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Help us to plant the seeds for the Catholicization of this country and the world.

Our Lady, Mother of God, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Thomas the Apostle, pray for us.