Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. The Church honors today the memory of St. Thomas, popularly known as the doubter. Thomas is associated with founding the Church in south India where he was martyred. He is the patron of builders, India, and Pakistan.
Although Thomas gave his life for the cause of the faith, he is remembered mainly because of his doubts about the resurrection of Christ. Apparently, Thomas did not want to admit to anything that went beyond the bounds of experience and reason. He had been there and witnessed the cruel execution of Jesus. He had seen him hanging on the cross even as his life ebbed away. How could this same Jesus be alive and well? Hadn’t Joseph of Arimathea requested for Jesus’ body after he was confirmed dead in order to give him a decent burial? And had not Jesus’ mother received the lifeless body of her son as he was lowered from the cross? Jesus had died and to believe anything otherwise was not only unpractical but also uncalled for. To believe that he was alive was, as it were, to hope against hope. Thomas didn’t want to be dragged into such a fruitless and pointless affair.
But before we criticize the apostle Thomas for his initial doubt of Jesus’ resurrection, we should be aware that Thomas represents all of us who live in a post-enlightened world. Many are the times when, just like Thomas, we too reject anything that cannot be backed by data or something that cannot be experimented. Like Thomas, we too do find ourselves saying that unless we see with our own eyes and touch with our own hands, we cannot believe. Thomas’ one moment of doubt did not take away from him his status as Jesus’ companion. It only portrayed him as a human person. At any rate, eight days after the incident, he made up for his unbelief by professing Jesus as “My Lord and my God.”
As we honor the memory of Thomas today, it would be fitting to reflect upon Thomas the Apostle not as a doubter but from another perspective. And this perspective is his saying yes to Jesus’ invitation to journey with him. It might seem insignificant for us today, but we must remember that Thomas said yes when Christianity was still in its inception phase. As a Jew, Thomas, as were the other Apostles, was risking a lot by breaking away from their Judaic faith in order to follow Jesus. He was leaving the comfort of an established religion, the religion of his ancestors, in order to join this roadside rabbi who was claiming to be a prophet. By choosing to join Jesus while abandoning the religion of his ancestors, Thomas was committing the crime of apostasy. As such, he was not only risking his reputation but his life as well. But Thomas did not think of the risk he was taking. He was convinced of the new possibilities that following Jesus promised, and he did not hesitate to follow him. It is this conviction that took him to India where tradition has it that he was martyred for his faith.  
We celebrate Thomas today since it is because of individuals like him that today the words of Paul continue to ring true: we are no longer aliens but fellow citizens with Christ of the heavenly kingdom. We are part of a building that has Thomas and others as its foundation stone. Thomas and the early followers of Jesus were people who were just like us. When Jesus offered them the challenge, they said yes. May we, the beneficiaries of the preaching of Thomas and his fellow apostles, be challenged to live holy and exemplary lives so that just like them, we too may proclaim the Good News of God to the ends of the world.