(Please read this Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
Today we celebrate the feast of the Apostle Thomas. On feasts such as this, we often have proclaimed to us this reading from Ephesians. The call to be an Apostle is a call to go out to all the world and proclaim the good news. The Apostles had to go out to call all strangers and foreigners to become citizens with the other holy ones, citizens that are built together into a place where God dwells. This is the good news.
I have friends who identify as gay. I hope that they hear the apostle calling them and their friends together, not as strangers, sojourners or permanent residents, but as citizens with the other holy ones, being built into a place where God dwells.
Our citizenship is established through the work of the Apostles and includes the people of every land, place and condition. This citizenship extends beyond the citizenship of one nation or group of people. It extends to all because God dwells in every place in the universe.
Did Thomas the Apostle understand this? He probably did, more than we understand it. Stories tell us that he preached the gospel in India, on the West Coast of present-day Mexico and is buried in Turkey.
Did Thomas actually go to these places? We do not know, but these places claim him. In doing so, they claim to have the same one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith that we have, even though none of the twelve Apostles visited the United States of America. These places lay claim to being equally as Catholic as people from Rome, Constantinople, Europe, the Middle East or the United States of America.
Our Catholic faith excludes no one. The work of the Apostles has called all peoples together to build up one temple sacred to the Lord, the place where God dwells in the Spirit.