St Thomas Mount
According to tradition Thomas the Apostle travelled to India and brought the Gospel there. He is considered the patron Saint of India.
While in India I had the opportunity to visit both the mount where it is said he had a spear thrust through him on 3rd July 72 A.D. as well as visiting the church where his body is said to be buried.
While in India I had the opportunity to visit both the mount where it is said he had a spear thrust through him on 3rd July 72 A.D. as well as visiting the church where his body is said to be buried.
View from St Thomas Mount
I love history so I thoroughly enjoyed seeing these (No pictures were allowed in St Thomas Basilica). The amateur historian in me was thrilled beyond belief to see such historic sights, but the reformed, Bible guy part of me had a huge sorrow over how far removed these sites are form the gospel Thomas preached.
Here there were places of penance where you could crawl in hot sand absolving sins committed after baptism. I took my shoes off to enter the chapel there and felt like my feet were melting to the ground, and that was only for a couple of steps into the church; the sand was hotter to touch.
The Gospels teach good news that it is Jesus in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:14) and that if we confess our sins He (Jesus) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). I have read through my Bible (various translations) and never seen a command by the Apostles to commit acts of penance.
So things like this saddened me, and I felt much the same as I had my visits to Rome, where the history took my breath away and the religion saddened my soul.
Baptismal Font
Penitence Crawl
Who was Thomas?
Thomas was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He was also named as Didymus in John 11:16; 20:24 both names mean 'Twin'. In Matt, Mark & Luke he is only mentioned in the listings of the disciples but John mentions him on a couple of occasions.
In John 11 when the Lord decided to return to Judea (where the Pharisees had recently tried to stone Jesus), Thomas declares "Let us also go, that we may die with him." We see here a man who, though wanting to avoid danger, was determined to follow Jesus anywhere, even at the risk of his life.
In John 14 Christ talks about going to prepare a place for them (speaking of his work at the cross preparing our place in heaven) and Thomas asks (vs5) "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus response here is an amazing claim; "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Again we see a man who is concerned with being with Jesus. And Jesus gives Thomas a summation of the Gospel - Jesus is the only way to heaven.
John 20 gives us the Thomas most of us remember and probably scorn. The doubter. He had been absent when the resurrected Jesus had appeared in the upper room and so Thomas says that "unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe." Eight days later Jesus offered him to put his hands in the marks and Thomas declared a wonderful statement about who Jesus is; "My Lord and My God."
It is traditionally said Thomas arrived in India in 52 A.D. and in accordance with Apostolic custom ordained teachers and elders among the church before his martyrdom in 72 A.D.
