Easter-Faith-Divine Mercy-Forgiveness

HOMILY EASTER SUNDAY 02 – Year A

Divine Mercy Sunday

(Acts 2:42-47; Ps 118; 1 Pt 1:3-9; Jn 20:19-31)

***************************************************

Divine Mercy Sunday celebrates the merciful love of God shining through the Easter Triduum and the whole Easter mystery. The feast recovers an ancient liturgical tradition, reflected in a teaching attributed to St. Augustine about the Easter Octave, which he called “the days of mercy and pardon,” and the Octave Day itself, “the compendium of the days of mercy.”

A focus on mercy is found in a chronological approach to the readings for this second Sunday of the Easter season. That focus starts to emerge out of Psalm 118 which states the Lord is not only steadfast love; the Lord has actually become our salvation.

Turning next to the Gospel, we see mercy in action as the forgiveness of Jesus. All the appearances of Jesus to the apostles after his resurrection were experiences of forgiveness and mercy from him. They had betrayed him, denied him and abandoned him – yet there was no anger or resentment in him, just forgiveness, peace and joy.

John is a theologian of symbolism and mysticism, and not a historian. Nowhere is that more apparent than here, where he places Pentecost on the evening of the same day Jesus rose from the dead, adding the first day of the week for good measure. For John, this is all about a brand-new creation, more awesome than the original creation, as awesome as that is.

In his own unique way, John keeps the focus on mercy, only now it is the apostles who are being commanded, and empowered, to forgive and show mercy. Jesus breathes on them, bestows that same Spirit that raised him from the dead on them, and then sends them out as the Father sent him – to be icons of the Father in the world – mercy, forgiveness, unconditional love, compassion and total non-violence. That is truly mercy.

Going on to the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we see mercy being lived out by the early Christian community through their dedication to four pillars of Christian life that we are called to live out today: scripture, fellowship, the Eucharist and prayer. We allow God’s mercy to transform us by praying with and pondering God’s Word; we share God’s mercy with each other through our heartfelt fellowship; we receive God’s mercy as forgiveness and healing through the Eucharist, and petition God to show mercy on the world and others through our life of prayer.

Finally, in the second reading we turn to St. Peter who wrote later on in his ministry to the growing Christian communities. We hear Peter state that by God’s great mercy, we have been given a new birth, new life, eternal life and a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our faith is that the fullness of salvation will be revealed only at the end of time. In the meantime, however, it is to be for us a source of rejoicing even in times of trial, for we have already received, in part, the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls.

It takes great faith to be a vessel of God’s mercy to others, and that was the challenge that Thomas faced. One of the Twelve Apostles, his name occurs in all the Gospel lists of the apostles. Thomas is called “Didymus,” the Greek form of an Aramaic name meaning “twin.”

Not present when Jesus appeared for the first time to the group of apostles, Thomas refused to believe (as did the others previously when they were told about the resurrection by Mary Magdalene and the disciples on the way to Emmaus). The fact that Jesus would call Mary Magdalene by name, and appear again, one week later, inviting Thomas to put his hands in his side and touch his wounds, demonstrates the immensity and incomprehensibility of God’s particular love – that he loves each of us by name and individually, as if we were the only person in the whole world.

Thomas’ magnificent act of faith, “My Lord and my God” transcends even that of St. Peter at Caesarea Philippi, and Martha at the raising of Lazarus. “My Lord” means the Risen Kyrios, Lord of all creation, and “my God” states unequivocally for all time that Jesus is truly divine, Son of God and equal to God. What a powerful statement for a lowly Jewish fisherman to make, and what a gift to all those who also struggle to believe.

Two powerful proponents of this divine mercy are Pope J.P. II and Pope Francis.  Pope John Paul II’s interest in Divine Mercy goes back to the days of his youth in Krakow when Karol Wojtyla was an eyewitness to so much evil and suffering during World War II in occupied Poland. He experienced the need for God’s mercy and humanity’s need to be merciful to one another. In the seminary, he was introduced to the message of the Divine Mercy, as revealed to the Polish mystic nun, St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, who died at the age of 33 in 1938.

At the beginning of his pontificate in 1981, Pope John Paul II wrote an entire encyclical dedicated to Divine Mercy –“Dives in Misericordia” (Rich in Mercy) –illustrating that the heart of the mission of Jesus Christ was to reveal the merciful love of the Father. Totally taken up by this message of mercy, he visited Maria Faustina’s tomb and canonized her in the Jubilee year 2000, making her the first canonized saint of the new millennium. He then established “Divine Mercy Sunday” as a special title for this Second Sunday of Easter for the universal Church.

In his homily for Divine Mercy Sunday in 2001, the Pope called the message of mercy entrusted to St. Faustina: “The appropriate and incisive answer that God wanted to offer to the questions and expectations of human beings in our time, marked by terrible tragedies … Divine Mercy! This is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to humanity at the dawn of the third millennium.”

For his part, the word “mercy” best describes the entire papacy of Pope Francis, who wants the church to be like a field hospital in areas of suffering; risk being mistaken and maligned rather than sequestered in comfort and ease; shepherds that will take on the smell of the sheep, and all of us to go out to the peripheries and reach out to the poor, showing mercy to one and all.

The Eucharist we celebrate on this Divine Mercy Sunday is itself an experience of God’s unconditional love and mercy, through Word and Sacrament. May it empower us to be missionaries of mercy, bringing God’s compassion and healing to a broken world so in need of mercy.