Today is "Doubting Thomas" Sunday within the Roman Catholic Church. My church bulletin had the following insightful statement about John 20. The background is that Thomas had just missed out on seeing the risen Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit.
How often we feel, like Thomas, that we have "missed out" on something that helps others to be more secure in their faith; that if we only had the right proof we would come to be full, complete, and total belief. This is seldom the way in which growth in faith works. Most often, for us as it was for Thomas, it is only by doggedly staying on the journey with Jesus Christ that we will come to greater faith in him. Too many of us believe that our growth in knowledge about our faith or in spiritual depth and awareness stops at a certain age, usually marked by graduation from an educational institution. But a spirit-filled relationship with Christ happens only through persistent pursuit of opportunities to increase our knowledge and understanding of the faith, opportunities to grow in prayer and to be shaped by praying with others, opportunities to bring others to believe through our witness...Let us look to Thomas, then, as our role model, perhaps even our patron, as we continue to grow in our faith in, and relationship with, the risen Christ.
(This bulletin is published by J.S. Paluch Company, Inc.)