Praying in Advent 2021: 24, Saint Thomas the Apostle

Carravagio: The Incredulity of Saint Thomas

Patrick Comerford

We are in the last week of Advent, and there are Christmas sermons and the details of Christmas services to attend to. Today (21 December2021) is going to be a busy day, but before this busy day begins, I am taking some time early this morning for prayer, reflection and reading.

Each morning in my Advent calendar this year, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflections on a saint remembered in the calendars of the Church during Advent;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Saint Thomas the Apostle … a sculpture on the west façade of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

This day in Advent [21 December] was once marked in the calendars of the Western Church, including the Book of Common Prayer, as the feast day of Saint Thomas the Apostle and was once a major feast day in the Church.

This commemoration was moved long ago to 3 July, the date given in the Martyrology of Saint Jerome and the day on which his relics are said to have been moved from Mylapore, near Madras, on the coast of India, to Edessa in Mesopotamia. After a short stay on the Greek island of Chios, the relics were moved in September 1258 to the West, and are now said to be in Ortona in Italy.

In the Orthodox Churches, Saint Thomas is remembered each year on Saint Thomas Sunday, or the Sunday after Easter, and on 6 October. He is now celebrated on 3 July in the Book of Common Prayer (2004) in the Church of Ireland and Common Worship in the Church of England, although he is still commemorated on 21 December in the Episcopal Church (TEC).

I think of Saint Thomas as an appropriate apostle to recall in Advent, for he reminds us that all our Christmas celebrations are meaningless without faith in the Resurrection.

In the Gospels, Saint Thomas is named ‘Thomas, also called the Twin (Didymus).’ But the name ‘Thomas’ comes from the Aramaic word for twin, T'oma (תאומא), so there is a tautological wordplay going on here.

Syrian tradition says the apostle’s full name was Judas Thomas, or Jude Thomas, but who was his twin brother (or sister)?

The Temple of Apollo in Didyma … one of the most important shrines and temples in the classical world to Apollo and his twin sister Artemis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have often visited Didyma on the southern Anatolian coast. There the Didymaion was one of the most important shrines and temples in the classical world to Apollo and his twin sister Artemis. Apollo was the sun-god, the sun of Zeus; he was the patron of shepherds and the guardian of truth, and in Greek and Roman mythology he died and rose again.

Is the story of Saint Thomas’s doubts an invitation to the followers of the cult of Apollo to turn to Christ, the true Son of God the Father, who is the Good Shepherd, who is the way, the truth and the light, who has died and who is truly risen?

We can never be quite sure about Saint Thomas in Saint John’s Gospel. After the death of Lazarus, the disciples resist Christ’s decision to return to Judea, where there had been an attempt to stone Jesus. But Thomas shows he has no idea of the real meaning of death and resurrection when he suggests that the disciples should go to Bethany with Jesus: ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him’ (John 11: 16).

And while Thomas saw the raising of Lazarus, what did he believe in?

Could seeing ever be enough for a doubting Thomas to believe?

The Apostle Thomas also speaks at the Last Supper (John 14: 5). When Christ assures his disciples that they know where he is going, Thomas protests that they do not know at all. He has been with Christ now for three years, and still he does not believe or understand. Seeing and explanations are not enough for him. Christ replies to this and to Philip’s requests with a detailed exposition of his relationship to God the Father.

In the Resurrection story in Saint John’s Gospel, Mary does not recognise the Risen Christ at first. For her, appearances could be deceiving, and she thinks he is the gardener. But when he speaks to her, she recognises his voice, and then wants to hold on to him. From that moment of seeing and believing, she rushes off to tell the Disciples: ‘I have seen the Lord.’

Two of the disciples, John the Beloved and Simon Peter, have already seen the empty tomb, but they fail to make the vital connection between seeing and believing. When they hear Mary’s testimony, they still fail to believe fully. They only believe when they see the Risen Lord standing among them, when he greets them, ‘Peace be with you,’ and when he shows them his pierced hands and side.

They had to see and to hear, they had to have the Master stand over them in their presence, before they could believe.

On the first Easter Day, the Disciples locked themselves away out of fear. But where is Thomas? Is he fearless? Or is he foolish?

For a full week, Thomas is absent and does not join in the Easter experience of the remaining disciples. He has not seen and so he refuses to believe. When they tell him what has happened, Thomas refuses to accept their stories of the Resurrection. For him hearing, even seeing, are not enough.

Thomas wants to see, hear and touch. He wants to use all his learning faculties before he can believe this story. He has heard, but he wants to see. When he sees, he wants to touch … he demands not only to touch the Risen Christ, but to touch his wounds too before being convinced.

And so for a second time within eight days, Christ comes and stands among his disciples, and says: ‘Peace be with you.’

Mary was asked in the garden on Easter morning not to cling on to Christ. But Thomas is invited to touch him in the most intimate way. He is told to place his finger in Christ’s wounded hands and his hand in Christ’s pierced side.

Caravaggio has depicted this scene in his painting, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas. Yet we are never told whether Thomas actually touched those wounds with his fingers. All we are told is that once he has seen the Risen Christ, Thomas simply professes his faith in Jesus: ‘My Lord and my God!’

In that moment, we hear the first expression of faith in the two natures of Christ, that he is both divine and human. For all his doubts, Saint Thomas provides us with an exquisite summary of the apostolic faith.

Too often, perhaps, we talk about ‘Doubting Thomas.’ Instead, we might better call him ‘Believing Thomas.’ His doubting leads him to question. But his questioning leads to listening. And when he hears, he sees, perhaps he even touches. Whatever he does, he learns in his own way, and he comes not only to faith but to faith that for this first time is expressed in that eloquent yet succinct acknowledgment of Christ as both ‘My Lord and My God.’

In our society today, are we easily deceived by appearances?

Do we confuse what pleases me with beauty and with truth?

Do we allow those who have power to define the boundaries of trust and integrity merely to serve their own interests?

Too often, in this world, we are deceived easily by the words of others and deceived by what they want us to see. Seeing is not always believing today. Hearing does not always mean we have heard the truth, as we know in Irish life and politics today. It is easy to deceive and to be deceived by a good presentation and by clever words.

Too often, we accept or judge people by their appearances, and we are easily deceived by the words of others because of their office or their privilege. But there are times when our faith, however simple or sophisticated, must lead us to ask appropriate questions, not to take everything for granted, and not to confuse what looks like being in our own interests with real beauty and truth.

Saint Thomas is a reminder that Christmas points to Easter. His story reminds us that the incarnation is not just a nice occasion for a winter festival and giving thanks after the Winter Solstice that the sun is returning and the days lengthening. It reminds us that Christmas Day has no meaning without Good Friday and Easter Day. Christmas faith is only meaningful when it is faith in the Resurrection.

Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort, Achill Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 1: 39-45 (NRSVA):

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (21 December 2021) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for everyone living with HIV/AIDS. May we help and support them rather than stigmatise them.

Yesterday: Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Tomorrow: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Saint Thomas the Apostle … an icon in the Chapel of Saint Columba House, Woking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

A gift of a book that recalls the story of the Methodist community in Tarbert

A plaque in Church Street, Tarbert, remembers the former Methodist Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Books are always a welcome present, and sometimes they arrive in the post as unexpected and delightful surprises. During the weekend, Pádraig Ó Conchbhair, the Ballylongford historian sent me a copy of his book, A Remote Outpost: the story of the Methodist Society in Tarbert, County Kerry, published in 2005. The wall plaque refers to the fact that there was a Wesleyan Methodist chapel at this location in 1830.

Pádraig Ó Conchbhair has also written books on Robert Emmet and the 1798 Rising in Co Kerry. He points to the coincidence that ‘it was because of the Rebellion of 1798 that the Methodist Connexion began to use Irish speaking preachers, which in turn led to the establishment of the Tarbert Society, a community of Christian Witness in North Kerry for over 140 years.’

Although John Wesley often visited Rathkeale and Adare in Co Limerick, he never visited Tarbert, nor did he ever visit any other part of Co Kerry, making it the only country in Ireland that Wesley never visited.

Instead, ‘Methodism came to Kerry through the Rev Charles Graham (1750-1824), ‘The Apostle of Kerry,’ an Irish speaker who was born in Sligo. He was sent to Kerry in 1790 at John Wesley’s express wish, although there is no evidence that he ever preached in North Kerry.

A preaching house was built in Tralee in 1795, and the first point of contact for Methodists with Tarbert may have been the Revd Adam Averell’s visit on 9 June 1790.

One of the earliest Methodist preachers to minister in Tarbert was the Revd Gideon Ouseley, an Irish speaker from Dumore, Co Galway. He rowed across the Shannon from Kilrush, Co Clare, to Tarbert, one day in 1820, and as he came ashore on Tarbert Island he declared aloud: ‘I take Tarbert in the name of the Lord Jesus.’

The Revd William Foote held regular Methodist services in Tarbert from 1820, and his twin sons were baptised in Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin (Tarbert) on 4 April 1821.

The Methodist Conference approved building a chapel in Tarbert in 1830, and a site on Church Street, east of the Rectory, was leased from John Leslie of Tarbert House. The new chapel and school opened for worship on 30 October 1830. It was a year after Catholic Emancipation and, by coincidence, this was the same year work began on building the first Roman Catholic church in Tarbert.

At the opening of the new Wesleyan chapel, the preachers included the Revd Elijah Hoole, a former missionary in India, and the Revd James Gillman, a Methodist minister in Limerick. The Clare Mission, based in Kilrush, once covered five counties – Clare, Galway, Tipperary, Limerick and Kerry – and ministers based in Kilrush regularly rowed eight miles across the Shannon Estuary to preach in the chapel in Tarbert, often exposing themselves to great danger.

Unlike the Palatine families in Co Limerick, many of whom became Methodists, the Palatine families in north Kerry largely remained members of the Church of Ireland.

The Methodist congregations in Kilrush and Ennis, Co Clare, were joined to the Limerick circuit based in Bedford Row, Limerick, in 1885. The Limerick Circuit was reorganised in 1903, and by 1908 Tarbert was transferred from the Clare Mission to the Rathkeale Circuit.

Pádraig Ó Conchbhair’s book also includes the stories of some unusual Methodist ministers. The Revd Michael Fitzelle Boveneizer of Rathgar, originally from Rathkeale, was an occasional preacher in Tarbert, and his name is included in list of lessees when the chapel in Tarbert was transferred from the Clare Mission to the Rathkeale Circuit in 1908. But he retired from the Methodist ministry at an early age, became a minister in the Congregationalist Church in England, and later developed an interest in spiritualism.

On one occasion, Boveneizer wrote to Ireland to find out the exact date of the death of the Revd P Donovan, saying he had been in touch with him at a séance the previous night. The reply came with glee the next day, saying Donovan was still alive and living in Dalkey, where he could be contacted directly without the necessity of a séance.

At the high point of Methodism in Ireland, there were three Methodist chapels in Co Kerry on the Tralee Circuit: Tralee, Ballymacelligot and Killorglin; and three on the Killarney Circuit: Killarney and Kenmare in Co Kerry and Allihies in Co Cork. The Tarbert ‘Mission Station,’ on the other hand, was linked with Kilrush Circuit, based in Co Clare.

The 1911 census shows eight Methodists living in Tarbert, including the six members of the Whitell family of the coastguard officer on Tarbert Island.

The Hill family of Church Street and later of Woodlands, had a large corn trade and were the principal Methodist family in Tarbert. They originally came from Mount Pleasant near Askeaton, Co Limerick. The story is told of a Miss Hill of Woodlands, who played the harmonium in Tarbert Chapel. She was walking through Tarbert one day and found a halfpenny lying on the ground. She picked it up, but her piety prohibited her from spending it on herself as she had neither earned it nor been given it as a gift … and so she chose to use it for the work of the Lord.

She bought a halfpenny spool of sewing cotton and used this to crochet a piece of lace which she then sold for 2/6 – sixty times the cost of the cotton. With the proceeds, she bought wool and knitted stockings. The money she received for them was enough to buy a new-born calf which she put out to graze for a year in the field behind the house. By that time the calf had grown into a heifer and was sold.

Miss Hill then had enough money to buy a small harmonium which she gave to the Methodist Church in Tarbert where it accompanied the worship for many years. She died in 1946, and was buried near Pallaskenry.

Finally, the Methodist chapel in Tarbert closed in 1962, was sold to the Downey family and was demolished, and some of the memorial plaques were moved to Saint Brendan’s Church, the nearby Church of Ireland parish church in Tarbert.

The Wesleyan Methodist Community in Tarbert had given witness for almost a century and a half. A plaque in Church Street on the site where the Methodist Chapel once stood was unveiled in 2010 at an event organised by the Tarbert Historical and Heritage Society. The speakers included Patrick Lynch and Pádraig Ó Conchúir.

A Hill family memorial in Saint Brendan’s Church, Tarbert, originally in the former Methodist Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)