Eastern Icons and the Gospel of Thomas?

ThomasIf you ever visit an Eastern Catholic or Eastern Orthodox parish, you’ll find them adorned with many icons and, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, these icons are dense with meaning.

At one point last year I brought a friend to my parish and we spent some time looking at the icons. He noticed that in the icons of the four Evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), each of them is holding a book, symbolic of the Gospel attributed him. He then noticed the icon of St. Thomas and asked a question which caught me off-guard:

“Is the scroll he’s holding a reference to the ‘Gospel of Thomas’?”

I had never considered that association before! You see, the “Gospel of Thomas” is a non-Canonical work from the mid 2nd Century and was rejected by the Catholic Church. Bishop Eusebius from 3rd Century described it as “the fictions of heretics”. Given all that, it’s rather unlikely that the scroll in Thomas’ hand in a Catholic Church is a reference to a heretical work of antiquity!

So…what does the scroll in the Apostle’s hand represent? In Eastern iconography, a scroll represents holy wisdom and indicates that the person preached and held the rank of apostle.

Sunday Lectionary: Going up?

In addition to being the Seventh Sunday in Easter, this Sunday is also Ascension Sunday. This has been an insanely busy week – sorry I didn’t get this posted earlier.

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord: 20th May, 2012

This Sunday we hear a glorious mystery! The Second Glorious Mystery to be precise! Yes, this Sunday we celebrate Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven.

In recent weeks, life among the Apostles had been, to put it mildly, a bit rocky (and not “rocky” in the good, “Peter” kind of way). In fact, things had been pretty awful. The Master had been betrayed, beaten and then killed on a cross. Dark times.

But then, something happened… He rose from the dead! For several weeks He had been appearing to His disciples! Life was good again! But then…what?…He left?

Huh? Things were finally starting to look up! Why did He leave? Did the Lord abandon His Church?

Read more