Feast of St. Thomas
[Go to Mission St Clare for an online version of the Daily Office including today’s scripture readings.]
Today’s Readings for the Daily Office:
Psalms 23, 121 (morning) // 118 (evening)
Job 42:1-6
1 Peter 1:3-9
The author of our second reading today marvels at the faith of his audience. The letter is written in the voice of someone who was an eye-witness to Jesus’s life and sufferings. He writes with wonder to a new community inspired by Jesus, even though they’d never met Jesus: “Although you have not seen him, you love him.”
This is the mystery that keeps Christian faith alive, that we love what we haven’t seen for ourselves. Today we celebrate the Feast of Saint Thomas, who, after Jesus’s death, felt that he needed to see in order to believe. But we have learned, in subsequent generations, that the crucial ingredient for faith is not seeing, but loving.
The early friends of Jesus, like Peter and Thomas, saw him during his life and in his sufferings. But their faith had its limits. Their truly wondrous gift to us is their encouragement to ultimately put our faith in what we love, rather than in what we see.
Lora Walsh serves as Priest Associate of Grace Episcopal Church in Siloam Springs and assists with adult formation and campus ministry at St. Paul’s in Fayetteville, Arkansas.