A kindergarten teacher had difficulty having her pupils understand Easter. One five year old thought he would make her day. He shouted, “Christ died, was buried, and rose. If He saw His shadow, we would have six more weeks of winter.” In a book modestly titled The Great Thoughts, Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, is quoted as dogmatically saying, “I have never seen the slightest scientific proof for the religious theories of heaven and hell.” Edison was a genius.
But he was not a theologian. Even our kindergarten child could tell him if one can prove something by scientific proof, one is not talking about faith. And faith, as the apostle learned, is the point at issue in this Easter season. The doubting apostle after his encounter with the Lord had more in common with the 13th century Thomas Aquinas than with the 20th century Thomas Edison. Aquinas wrote: “The heart can go where the head has to leave off.” Writers spend more time on Thomas the Inventor than they do on Thomas the Apostle. That is a pity. Thomas has more to teach us about the answers to the ultimate questions than Edison.
The apostle was a complex and unique personality. That uniqueness may explain why Jesus chose him in the first place. It is probable that Our Lord was determined to use that personality for our education. Who knows? Perhaps Mr Edison learned in the course of his long life the wisdom of RB Graham. “It takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to believe in God.” There are but three informative references to Thomas in the New Testament. Each is in John’s Gospel. The Gospel of John was the last to be penned. Perhaps John the Eagle concluded that the neglect of Thomas in earlier accounts did a serious injustice to Thomas himself and to Catholics at large. A composite work-up of his psyche from John’s Gospel today tells us much about Thomas.
It is the last Gospel reference to Thomas. He is pessimistic, stubborn as that famous mule, and subject to the all too common line that teaches seeing is believing. “I believe,” said the college freshman to me, “only what I can see.” She was convinced she had coined the line. Someone has noted Thomas had a question mark for a mind. This complicated psyche is graphically illustrated in the 16th century Carvaggio’s masterful painting of Thomas putting his finger into Christ’s wound. We know the Gospel story and especially its happy ending. Thomas would never forget that searing line of his resurrected Leader, “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe!” The doubting Thomas had received a lecture on faith that he would never forget. It is a message which Edison never learned. Thomas the apostle had told his fellows that seeing is believing.
Christ taught the apostle that believing is seeing. The no longer doubting apostle would enthusiastically applaud the observer who opined that a strong faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible. There was nothing uncertain about Thomas’ unqualified cry to the Nazarene, “My Lord and my God.” While he was the last of the apostles to believe in the risen Christ, he was the first to make such an unequivocal confession of His divinity. In a millisecond, his faith had taken a quantum leap. It must have splintered every theological seismograph throughout Jerusalem.
The Gospels tell us Thomas had a twin. Who is his twin? It is you and I. William Bausch tells us we are all a mixture of doubt and certainty, pessimism and trust, unbelief and belief. On those days, when doubt, pessimism, and unbelief hold the cards, we must hold onto Thomas’ cloak and not let go for dear life. The 6th century St Gregory realized the value of Thomas to Christendom at large. He wrote: “The slow surrender of Thomas is of more advantage to strengthen our faith than the more ready faith of all the believing apostles.” And John realized this point centuries before Gregory.
So he tells us Thomas’ story. As we leave this Liturgy today, we should say a prayer in gratitude for such a person as the apostle Thomas. But in addition each one of us will want to reflect on the aphorism that teaches that it is not sufficient for Catholics to believe their faith. They must tell others about it. “Our lives end the day,” said Martin Luther King, Jr, “that we become silent about things that matter.” And do remember to say an Ave Maria for Thomas Edison. Despite my trashing, we owe the man a great deal.