Hi friends,
I hope that this season is treating you well. I’m sending thoughts and prayers (earnest ones) to those of you who live up north and struggle with the short days and thin light of this time of year. I know how it feels, and it feels not-good-at-all. I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves in any way you can. As for me, I’m doing well. My kids are getting their second dose of the covid vaccine this weekend, we have lots of family coming to Austin for the holidays, and I’m currently and happily neck-deep in book edits.
"A blind man cannot see the sun, but he knows that it is above the earth from the warmth which it affords; similarly, let those who are still in the blindness of unbelief recognize the Godhead of Christ." – Athanasius
Every month, for this newsletter, I write about a saint whose feast day falls during that month. Every December I flip a metaphorical coin to decide if I’m going to write about John the Beloved or Saint Thomas the Apostle, and this year Saint Thomas won out. Thomas, the poor man, is known best for one story about a singular moment of doubt. Jesus died and Jesus rose from the dead and Jesus appeared to the other apostles but Thomas missed that appearance. Thomas refused to believe what the apostles had told him about Jesus’ resurrection, saying, "Except I shall see on his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." We cast Thomas as doubting, but I like to think of his feelings as coming more from grief than from stubbornness. Jesus was his savior but Jesus was also his friend, and the loss of a friend cuts deeply. Jesus, ever compassionate, appears to Thomas and offers Thomas his body. Thomas believes, and Thomas puts his hand in Jesus’ wound.
Those of you who are familiar with the Catholic liturgical calendar might be confused as to why I’m writing about Saint Thomas in December because Saint Thomas’ feast day actually falls on July 3rd. It didn’t used to, though, and it was only moved recently (in 1969, which is recent by the standards of the Catholic Church, which likes to measure time by centuries rather than by years, for better or for worse). I know a number of people (mostly Anglicans) who still celebrate Thomas’ feast in December, and I like to as well, because I think that his old feast day is better suited to his theological significance. Thomas’ old feast falls on December 21st, the winter solstice. It makes perfect sense to me that, on the longest night of the year, we would look to Saint Thomas. Here is a man who knew the darkness of doubt, of grief, of loss. Of all the communion of saints, it seems most fitting to me that on the winter solstice we would sit in the dark and pray to the man who just wanted to see his savior, the man who wanted to reach out in the night and touch his friend again.
I can’t talk about Saint Thomas without talking about what is, perhaps, my favorite painting of all time. It’s called The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, and I’m almost certain that I could write a whole book about it. It is striking in the way all Caravaggio paintings are striking, all chiaroscuro and high drama. There is no indication of setting—just four illumined figures in inky darkness. In the Bible, Thomas is the only one who actively questions Jesus’ identity after the resurrection, but in Caravaggio’s painting, the other two apostles are equally captivated by Christ’s wounds. And the wounds are front and center. There is no mysticism in this painting. Jesus doesn’t even have a halo. He is as human as his friends, a man made of flesh and blood and bone. Everything in this painting lives in the body, and this, to me, is the greatest love there is. In this painting, Jesus is not frustrated with Thomas. He is not reproachful. He firmly guides Thomas’ hand to his wound, and he meets Thomas and the other apostles on their own bodily terms, a miracle in its own right. In the darkest night of doubt, we cannot see, but we can feel.
Advent started a few days ago. Like so very many of you, Advent is my favorite liturgical season, the pregnant period of waiting for the birth of Christ, the Incarnation, the God we can touch. But while Advent is about waiting for the coming of the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, it’s also about waiting for the Second Coming of Christ. The liturgical readings in the leadup to Advent are apocalyptic, speaking about the end of the world. During Advent, we remember that Christ came once and also that Christ will come again. The Incarnation happened and it will happen again. The Word became Flesh and it will happen again. I love that Saint Thomas’ feast day falls during Advent because Thomas knows what it feels like to wait in the dark. For me, Advent feels like the moments in Thomas’ life between the moment when Jesus died and the moment when Thomas met Jesus again. It feels like the longest vigil, eyes trained on the horizon for the miracle of the rising sun.
Every year I pray to Saint Thomas on the winter solstice, the day when we finally get to turn back to the light. I think about Thomas getting to see his friend again, to feel the warmth of touch like the sun on one’s face after a long winter. And I think about tarot’s Sun. For me, the Sun represents the Incarnation. It is a deeply physical archetype: the little Christ child on his horse, the sunflowers, the sun itself which looks like a monstrance with rays pouring out to touch the whole world. The Incarnation is powerful, to be sure, but it is also an exquisitely tender act of love. God knows that we are physical beings who love in physical ways, and so God made Himself a God whom we can touch. Of the Sun archetype, Valentin Tomberg says, “There is nothing more banal than the rising of the sun which repeats itself day after day throughout innumerable millions of years. Yet it is thanks to this banal phenomenon that our eyes—organs for the light of the sun—see all the new things that life brings. Just as the light of the sun renders us seeing with regard to things of the physical world, so does the light of the spiritual sun—grace—render us seeing with regard to what is brought about from the spiritual world.” There is nothing more banal than a human embrace, and there is nothing we want more from the God who loves us beyond measure. There is nothing more banal than a physical touch, but there is nothing more miraculous than God letting Himself be touched. I think that, perhaps, Thomas knows this better than any of us.
I’ve spent the last year and change writing a guide for using tarot in a Christian way, spinning out scores of little meditations paired with handfuls of reflection questions. I’m still stuck in that track, I guess. I wrote this little meditation on Saint Thomas and Advent and the Sun and now I want to guide you. So here’s your little bit of homework. Figure out where you can touch God. Where does God let you feel his wounds? Where does God let you touch God’s love? Where do you feel the divine intimacy of reaching into a wound made for you?
brittany, this is so gorgeous. thank you, as always, for your generous and beautiful words 🖤