October: Day 6: Holy Apostle Thomas

October: Day 6:
Holy Apostle Thomas
 
(On Doubt in Matters of Faith)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Apostle Thomas, whose memory is celebrated today, nicknamed Didymus (the twin), a Galilean by birth, was one of the Twelve Apostles. When, after the resurrection of the Lord, Thomas was told that Jesus Christ was risen, Thomas did not believe it and said that he would not believe until he himself saw the Savior and touched His wounds. Eight days after the resurrection, the Lord, appearing to the disciples through closed doors, said to Thomas: “Look at My hands and put your fingers into My wounds, and do not remain in unbelief, but believe.” Thomas was ashamed of his unbelief and joyfully exclaimed: “You are my Lord and my God!” Then the Savior said to him: “You believed when you saw; but blessed are those who, not seeing, believe.”

After the descent of the Holy Spirit, Thomas was sent by lot to preach in Parthia, Media and India. He began to grieve that such distant and unknown countries had fallen to his lot, but the Lord consoled him with His appearance. Thomas ended his preaching of the gospel in India with a martyr's death: he was pierced with a spear.

II. The doubt of the Holy Apostle Thomas, which ended in deep faith, prompts us, brethren, to talk now about doubt in matters of faith, which many are infected with at the present time and which often ends in great misfortune in unbelief, depriving one of the kingdom of heaven.

a) What is doubt in matters of faith?

The Holy Scripture compares those who doubt to “a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6). Those who doubt have no ground or stability.

Doubt in faith is a consequence of the moral decline of the human soul. As an example, we can point to the Jewish people of the times of the Lord Jesus Christ, who sometimes declared and confessed their faith in the Savior, and then immediately renounced this faith.

b) The state of mind of those who doubt their faith is truly terrible. Doubt in faith satisfies only in the midst of earthly happiness, it is peaceful only in a person who, full of health and life, regards the last moment of death as a very distant event. But from the very moment when our life begins to be threatened by danger, when illnesses appear - these harbingers of death, to remind us that the terrible moment is not far from us, if we are in unforeseen danger and see our life hanging by a thread, then doubt ceases to satisfy us, the imaginary safety that it promised us before turns into a terrible danger, full of reproaches, fear and horror. Then doubt ceases to seem comfortable and begins to seem terrible. In his moral relaxation a man then seeks light and does not find it, he appeals to faith, but the faith which he has neglected all his life, and which perhaps he even ridiculed, does not answer him, because he turns to it not with humility of heart, but from the proud spirit of the mind. And not only does doubt become a terrible torment when a man is in a dangerous position, when his gaze is troubled and frightened before the darkness of the unknown future; but also in the ordinary course of life, amidst everyday events, a man feels a thousand times how the poison of the viper (i.e., unbelief), hidden in his chest, falls drop by drop on his heart. There are moments when even from pleasures one feels fatigue, when the world becomes boring, when life becomes a burden, when they do not know what to do with the time that seems to them to move forward so slowly; then a deep melancholy takes possession of the soul, an indescribable anxiety torments it.

It is not the overwhelming misfortunes of life; it is not the sadness that oppresses the spirit and causes sad sighs; it is a murderous exhaustion, dissatisfaction with everything around us, a painful numbness of all our forces. What am I in the world for? - a man asks himself. What benefit has my existence brought me? What do I lose by withdrawing from the face of the earth, which has become hateful to me, and by being deprived of the sun, which no longer shines on me? I am dissatisfied with today, as I was with yesterday, and tomorrow will be the same as today; my soul seeks pleasure and does not enjoy it, demands happiness and does not achieve it.

Have you not felt, O happy ones of the world, this torment, this worm gnawing at the souls of those who think to be intellectually superior to others? Does not despair torment your breast? Know then that one of the sad sources of this state is doubt; it is the emptiness of the soul that troubles and torments it, this terrible absence of all faith and all hope, this ignorance of God, the origin and purpose of man.

Only in a strong faith in God and the spiritual world will a person find complete consolation in the sorrows of life, gain patience in illness, peace in the face of death, after which an eternally blessed life will begin for those who believe and love God and their neighbors, and resolve all the disturbing questions of life that torment the mind of every thinking being.

c) What means can be pointed against doubt? Sincerity of heart and simplicity of soul, a genuine desire to possess the truth, ardent prayer to God for the increase of faith in our hearts, conversations with believers, reading the word of God, attending church services, living according to the rules of the Christian religion, which “will empirically convince everyone of the truth and divinity of Christianity,” attention to the paths and circumstances of one’s life – these are the means against doubt. The Holy Apostle Thomas possessed these means, and therefore his temporary doubt immediately turned into complete and unshakable faith, expressed in the appeal: “My Lord and my God!” Otherwise, a person, even with visual evidence of the truth of faith, can doubt, and his doubt can finally turn into unbelief.

III. Through the prayers of the Holy Apostle Thomas, who experienced all the danger of doubt himself, may the Lord deliver us from the spirit of doubt or turn it into the spirit of faith and firm trust in God, who is a strong shield against all the calamities and vicissitudes of life and even against death itself.

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.