St. Thomas the Believer

Christ is risen!

Yesterday was the Sunday of St. Thomas the Believer. Notice I didn’t call St. Thomas by his “popular” name of “Doubting Thomas.” That’s because the Church never takes a snapshot of a man at his worst unless that’s how he ends his life. The Lord remembers us at our best because that’s when we are most like who we really are. When we are at our worst, we are mere caricatures of our real selves.

St. Thomas goes on to minister and then martyrdom in india and his testimony and faithful witness to the Lord’s resurrection and Gospel are worthy of eternal memory. In Ecclesiastes 11:3, the Preacher declares: “And if a tree falls to the south or the north,
In the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie.” In other words, it’s a man’s end that tells the truth about his life, not just one moment of that life.

Today, let us examine our own lives to see that the seeds of how we will end our lives are already planted in our hearts.

First, what do you spend your time doing? There is nothing like an inventory of how you spend your time to diagnose what you really find most important. The truth is we adults do find a way to do what is most important to us. For instance, I may say a daily workout is important to me, but if I never make time to do that daily workout then it’s just not really that important to me!

Second, what do you spend your money for? Face it, we reveal what is truly important to us by how we spend our hard earned money. A wise preacher friend once told me “Son, a man’s checkbook reveals his true priorities.” Ouch! Seriously, we each reveal what is important to us by how we use our finances, or by how we misuse them. Our debts, our bills, our spending reveals our priorities. In a society that spends billions on cosmetics (both men and women: the fastest growing part of cosmetic surgery is among men) and pet food, we should regularly check our true priorities by looking at our attitudes and uses of our money.

Finally, what do you want? What you desire reveals who you are. Over and over again our Lord Jesus would ask people who came to Him for help “What do you want me to do for you?” The Lord did this not because He didn’t know, but to reveal to the person their true desires. What you hunger for, what you desire, what you crave, reveals your true self. There is no better spiritual diagnostic tool that this question “What do you want?” Answer that, and the beginnings of deep spiritual, emotional, and even physical healings are available to you.

Today, examine the garden of your heart and ask the Lord to lovingly reveal to you the patterns of life that are building you toward the “end” of your life. Then, run to the spiritual hospital of the Church and avail yourself to all the “medicine of immortality” freely available to you. If Jesus isn’t dead anymore then you don’t have to be either!