Catechesis Notes for the Week — Advent Meditations: St. Thomas, Apostle – As we begin our final week of Advent, looking toward the celebration of the birth of the Son of God in human flesh, we hear the detailed testimony from the evangelists St. Matthew and St. Luke in the Bible Stories. Listen carefully how the evangelists cite the Old Testament Scriptures which are being fulfilled in Jesus’ birth.  Christ’s Birth Is Foretold to Joseph is anchored in the promise of the Virgin birth from the prophet Isaiah. The Nativity of Our Lord and the Birth of Christ Is Announced to Shepherds shows the connection between the presence of the Lord in the glory-cloud that was suspended between the cherubim above the mercy-seat in the Old Testament and the fulness of that glory in Jesus that shone around the shepherds as the Angel of the Lord announced His birth. Against the backdrop of Scripture fulfilled in the birth of Christ stands the Feast of St. Thomas, Apostle, on December 21. Thomas, together with his fellow apostles, witnessed the fulfillment of the entirety of the Old Testament Scriptures in everything that Jesus said and did. Thomas’ insistence that he must see the resurrected Lord was proper. As an Apostle, he could not bear witness to that which he had not seen. This teaches us that everything recorded in the Apostolic witness of the New Testament is what the Apostles heard and saw from Jesus in fulfillment of the Scriptures.CP221218