It was exactly three years ago on this very day (Feastday of St Thomas) that I reached Shillong. Being a Sunday went to participate in the Holy Mass in the Parish ... Khasi Mass. Remember with great amusement the fact that in spite of carefully paying attention all through the Mass, I managed to understand just three words during the whole service: India, Madras, St Thomas!!! Anyway, speaking of life and stay in Shillong always floods my mind with beautiful memories... maybe sometime later!
Listening to Fr Anchu this morning give the sermon on his feastday, I was wondering why did St Thomas find it hard to believe his own companions... those with whom he shared three years of his life in close collaboration! And as if Fr Anchu read my mind, he proposed this idea which struck me as something quite possible: Perhaps the witness of those apostles who saw the Risen Lord was not convincing enough for Thomas! Thomas therefore, instead of relying on some second hand information - that too unconvincing! - or ride piggyback on somebody else's experience, decided to make his own experience before anything. And we all know the rest of the story... 'My Lord and my God!'
In the light of what I shared also when I heard of the death of Fr Moyalan, I now feel all the more convinced of the need to be convinced through our own experience and life. Not possible always, but that does not and should not exempt us from attempting to seek a personal experience. This idea will surely help us in viewing the 'doubting Thomas' in a new and different light. ... May his tribe increase!
God make me strong enough to be a witness and that too a credible witness of Yourself... not some dead monument to an ideology.
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