One Minute Reflection – 21 December – “The Month of the Divine Infancy and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary” – Feast of St Thomas, Apostle of Christ – Ephesians 2:19-22; John 20:24-29 – Scripture search here: https://www.drbo.org/
“Blessed are they who have not seen and yet, have believed.” – John 20:29
REFLECTION – “The disciples’ weakness was so unsteady that, not content with seeing the risen Lord, they still wanted to touch Him if they were to believe in Him. It was not enough for them to see Him with their eyes, they wanted to put out their hands to His limbs and touch the marks of His recent wounds. It was after He had touched and acknowledged His scars that the unbelieving disciple cried out: “My Lord and my God!” Those scars revealed the One Who, where other people were concerned, healed every wound! Could the Lord not have risen without scars? Yet, He saw within His disciples’ hearts, wounds which those scars which He had preserved in His Body, would heal.
And what does the Lord answer that confession of faith of His disciple, who says: “My Lord and my God”? “Have you come to believe because you have seen Me? Blessed are they who have not seen and yet, have believed.” Who is He talking about, my friends, if not of us? And not just of us but of those, too, who will follow us. For shortly afterwards, when He had disappeared from mortal sight so as to strengthen faith in the heart, all those who became believers, believed without seeing and their faith had great merit. To acquire it they reached out to Him, not a hand with which to touch Him but only, a loving heart! ” – St Augustine (354-430) Father and Doctor of Grace (Sermon 88).
PRAYER – O Lord, grant us, we beseech Thee, to glory in the Feast-day of blessed Thomas, Thy Apostle, that we maybe helped continually by his patronage and imitate his faith with a devotion like his. Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen (Collect).
AnaStpaul 