As we celebrate the feast of St Thomas, Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of John (20: 24-29) in which Jesus says to Thomas, who refused to believe that Jesus had risen unless he saw for himself, ‘You believe because you can see me; happy are those who have not seen and yet have believe’. Afterwards, Fr Paul shares a little about St Thomas, the apostle, whose life we celebrate today.

Fr Paul says the apostle Thomas is famous for doubting the resurrection of Jesus when his fellow apostles told him all about it; but if he is the sceptical apostle, he is also the believing apostle, for having seen and touched a risen man, he made the immediate leap of faith and so he became the first apostle to call Jesus, God.

Nothing is known about Thomas’s later life. A well-known apocryphal document called the Acts of Thomas relates his missionary journeys to Persia and India. Although the document as it stands is not historical evidence, it still bears witness to the likelihood of a tradition that Thomas did go to India.

We will probably never know for certain; but the Christians of Kerala in India have called themselves for centuries “St Thomas Christians”, and they may very well be right.

So, on this special day, Fr Paul invites us to ask, ‘St Thomas…pray for us!’