The Finger of St Thomas

So I’m on pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee Year in 2000, and I wanted to save money so I opted not to pay a single room supplement and find out that my room mate is an Irish bricklayer named Ian. I don’t mind, but he’s not too pleased. He says to me on the first night, “So you’re one of those clever ones who writes books are you? Well, why am I in a room with you?  I’m just a bricklayer.” He’s smoking a roll your own ciggie and looking out the window for the nearest bar, so thinking fast I said, “Well, Jesus was a carpenter so I reckon you’re probably closer to him than I am.” He gives me a Clint Eastwood squint and smile so we’re friends.

The thing is, Ian didn’t know about doing the seven baslicas as part of a Roman pilgrimage. I did. So now he’s starting to be grateful that he’s lodging with a book-guy. So we go trotting off together to the Lateran, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria Maggiore etc. Finally we end up at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and I tell him the story of the Empress Helena and he’s agog and amazed that anybody has so much knowledge and I tell him that if I built a brick wall it would fall down so we’re even.

Then we enter the chapel of relics, and I’m skeptical. By now I’m a Catholic but the old Protestant, “Relic of the True Cross sure sure. Pull the other one” attitude is still lurking about. So I’m looking around not really believing that this is the nail from the cross or that is the title board or this is the splinter of the true cross or that is the cross beam from the good thief’s cross. Then I see Ian peering at another reliquary. “Look Father!” He says. (He kept calling me ‘Father’ even though I wasn’t ordained at the time) “Look, here’s the finger bone of St Thomas!”

I see he believes it all. No doubts. Then I see he’s weeping. Sobbing like a baby. Wiping his eyes with an old hankie. I’m still detached and being all intellectual. Then he says, “Don’t you think we should do the Stations Father?”

“Why sure. That’s a nice idea.”

“Will you lead us please?”

So I gather a group of other pilgrims together and get my pilgrim prayer book and move out of detached curious museum mode into true Catholic pilgrim mode. Before long I’m sniffling too and Ian’s done me a lot of good.

I start thinking about it all and realize that it was the finger bone of St Thomas that did the trick. Thomas who is known for doubting. Thomas who had to make sure. Thomas who stood back and didn’t have the heart. Thomas who was also converted in the end and now it doesn’t matter to me if it is really St Thomas’ finger or not. I’m convinced that the worth of the relic is something greater. It made me think.

It opened my head, and more importantly–it opened my heart.

PS: Remind me to tell you the story sometime of how Ian and I managed to get into the Pope’s garden and came within spitting distance of JP2