The Legacy of St. Thomas
The Church recently – on July 3rd – celebrated the feast of a saint whose name I share: St. Thomas the Apostle.
All most of us remember about St. Thomas was that, when he was told that Jesus had risen from the dead, he did not believe. Only by examining the wounds of Christ would he be convinced. Jesus appeared to Thomas a week later and invited the Apostle to touch his wounds. Thomas’s response was, “My Lord and My God!” Then Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
But after his repentance Thomas became a great evangelizer. He did what no other Apostle did, preaching the Word not just in the region of the Holy Land and Europe, but, according to tradition, traveling to the Orient, to the land which today we call India. In the Middle Ages, when Catholics from Europe went to India, they were amazed to find Christians there.
It is said that St. Thomas arrived on the Coast of Malabar in A.D. 52. He is believed to have established at least seven Christian Communities. He then moved across land to the Coromandel Coast. He was martyred near Madras in A.D. 72. For twenty centuries the people he is credited with converting and their descendants have comprised the St. Thomas Christians of Kerala, India; some of them eventually became what is known today as the Syro-Malabar and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Churches.
There are now St. Thomas Christians in the Diocese of Raleigh. A number of these Catholic brothers and sisters of ours live in the Triangle area, not a few around Bahama, north of Durham. The Lourdes Matha Syro-Malabar Catholic Church is in Durham.
A Bishop of the Syro-Malabar Eparchy of Chicago and some priests of this Church regularly come to Raleigh to celebrate the Divine Liturgy. There are also Latin Rite Catholics from Kerala who come to worship at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Raleigh.
Msgr. Thomas P. Hadden