Kontakion of Thomas Sunday: ”With his searching hand (Τῇ φιλοπράγμονι δεξιᾷ / Любопытною десницею),* Thomas explored Your life-giving side, O Christ God.* For when You entered while the doors were shut,* he called out to You with the rest of the Apostles:* You are my Lord and my God!”
Ikos: “Who stopped the hand of the disciple from being melted when he approached the fiery side of the Saviour? Who gave him such boldness, to be able to touch this blazing door? Surely it was the One who was touched, for if He had not given this power to a hand made of clay, how could it have touched the wounds which shook both heaven and earth? And Thomas received the grace to touch Christ and shout out to Him: You are my Lord and my God.”
The Kontakion-and-Ikos of Thomas Sunday, chanted repeatedly in the weekday-services of this 2nd Week after Pascha, helps us to contemplate what Thomas’s “exploration” of the risen Lord’s wounds means, and why it is relevant for “the rest of the Apostles” – and the rest of us.
What it means, simply put, is that even when our “doors” are shut to communion with Him, Christ overcomes our obstacles by offering Himself, and Himself crucified, to us, as our Way and our Door of entrance back into communion. Because we are essentially powerless to unlock the doors of our hearts, when we slip into various forms of self-centered God-lessness and fear. Christ’s very wounds are called a “blazing door,” in the Ikos-hymn quoted above, because it is through them, through participating in His cross-carrying Way, that we enter and re-enter into communion with God and one another.So let me pick up my cross today, once again, and walk through things in faith, rather than avoid them in fear. Thus I reach out and touch the wounds of Christ, Who is the One who “comes” despite my closed doors. And I say with Thomas and the rest of us: “My Lord and my God!”
Christ is risen, dear friends! Please tune in to our daily, weekday “Morning Coffee” audio-podcasts, for some daily inspiration on our journey from Pascha to Pentecost! Join our 500+ faith-inspired subscribers at: patreon.com/sistervassa. Love from Vienna, Sister Vassa
