Thomasine spirituality! What does one mean by it? It does not simply mean the spirituality of St Thomas, the Apostle, though it is implicitly implied. We mean by this expression the particular life style that the faithful of the Syro-Malabar Church must appropriate for themselves as sons of Thomas the Apostle. A Church inherits from its founder the particular characteristics of his personality. St Thomas the Apostle has left for us a unique style of following Jesus and demands from us a unique eclesial life style.
The life and personality of St Thomas the Apostle of In¬dia always enthrals us. The spontaneity in his reactions and responses, the naïve-like innocence in his dealings and re-lations, the wholeness and integrity in following and com¬mitment and the total identification with the master and the people make a deep impression upon the mind and heart of every follower. The courage and straightforwardness that he always displayed in his interactions with the Master and the co-disciples challenge us to be upright and honest in our life and dealings. The zeal and spiritual vigour in his missionary life inspires us to be simple but spiritu-ally strong in our commitment. Thomas is very often surnamed the doubting, but his faith and personality was much greater than his doubt, if at all he doubted.
An apostolic Christian community, founded on the distinct and specific Christ-experience of an apostle and the socio-cultural foundations of the people, is sure to inherit the spirituality of the founding apostle, at the same time retaining the specific cultural integrity. St Thomas Christians, who prided themselves in living the way of the Apostle Thomas, have always been faithful to the spiritual patrimony it inherited from the apostle. Their way of life was characterized by what they termed Thomamragam. A community placed on the top echelon of the Kerala society, the Christians of St Thomas had always maintained a unique style of life characterized by a threefold influence: Indian culture, Christian faith and Oriental form of worship. This three dimensional influence formed these Christians into a unique community which became the centre of attraction to the European society from the 16th century onwards. The consciousness of the apostolic origin forced these Christians to defy all attempts of intrusion into the Thomamargam by the outsiders. Thomamargam was to them their distinct spirituality, a way of life that determined their loyalty to the Apostle Thomas and to Jesus Christ. To them spirituality itself had an ecclesial dimension. All aspects of their life was centred on the life in the Church.
Christian spirituality is a personal way of life in which a Christian lives the daily life style in accordance with his personal assimilation of the mystery of Christ under the direction of the Holy Spirit. It is concretely manifested differently by different persons. In this sense, are we able to speak about a spirituality of St Thomas Christians? The Church of St Thomas Christians is an apostolic Church founded on the Christ-experience of the apostle Thomas in the culturally and religiously fertile soil of India. So the Christians who were the recipients of the unique Christ-experience of St Thomas developed a life style different from all other communities of faithful in other geographical areas. They developed an attitude to life in the light of their faith experience and their relation with the people of other beliefs. These Christians of St Thomas in the beginning had to make their life style reasonable to the people of various other faiths. At the same time, they had to prove that Christianity was a better religion to unite one to God and to fellow people in a more meaningful and existential way. It was also a Christianity far removed from the fellow faith groups and which lived in practical isolation from the rest of the Christian world.
Therefore, TRC will make serious and earnest researches into the Thomasine spirituality and the results of the research will be published from time to time. We invite like-minded people to co-operate with us in this endeavor.
