From doubt to faith in his mercy

Today, the Church celebrates the Second Sunday in the Easter Season.  On the second Sunday of Easter during the Jubilee Year 2000, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II canonized Saint Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun, and designated this day as Divine Mercy Sunday.

Here is the reflection I prepared and shared with all those who came to pray with us today.  The gospel passages proposed for our meditation focus on the image of Saint Thomas, otherwise known as Didymus (the twin).

Mercy in the shadow

The first week of Easter, beginning with the Easter Vigil and concluding with the liturgy of the Second Sunday of Easter – that is today – is known as the Easter Octave.  These first eight days of the Easter season are celebrated as though they were only one day.  Throughout the week, the scriptures have placed before us various accounts of Jesus’ appearances to his disciples after his Resurrection.  Today’s gospel begins with one of these apparitions which took place in the evening on the day Jesus rose … Jesus stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you’ (Jn 20:19).  The doors to the room where they were, were locked so we can understand why they would have been frightened by this sudden appearance, but Jesus wanted to convince them, so he showed them his hands and his side, which bore the wounds of his crucifixion, so that they would believe that it was him.

It’s important that we understand that it was the wounds in his hands and his side that convinced the disciples that he was truly standing in their midst.  As it turns out, when the disciples tried to tell Thomas that they had seen the risen Lord, he didn’t believe them: like the disciples themselves who didn’t believe Mary Magdalene and the other women when they first told them that they had seen the risen Jesus, Thomas too needed to see it for himself.

It is by no accident that we have this story of Thomas recounted for us eight days after we too have celebrated the Lord’s resurrection.  Even in the time of the disciples, the practice of gathering once a week to spend time together, to remember the experience they had lived with Jesus and to break bread together was already being established.  So it was that after eight days his disciples were again in the house, and this time, Thomas was with them (Jn 20:26).  Like the week before, Jesus appeared among them and this time he turned to Thomas.  With tender and loving words, he spoke to him: Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not doubt, but believe (Jn 20:27).

On the second Sunday of Easter during the Jubilee Year 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized Saint Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun who received visions of Jesus during her earthly life.  According to these visions, Jesus instructed Saint Faustina to spread the news about God’s infinite and merciful love toward all people, and for this reason she was accorded the title Secretary of Mercy, and this second Sunday of the Easter season has become known as Divine Mercy Sunday.

Nailed to the cross, blood would have flowed from the holes in Jesus’ hands and feet, but the scriptures tell us that when the soldiers came to break the legs of the crucified criminals, they found that Jesus was already dead, so instead of breaking his legs, they pierced his side with a lance, and immediately there came out blood and water (Jn 19:34).  It is physically impossible for such liquids to flow easily from a dead body, yet these wounds in Jesus' hands, feet and side were the proof that the disciples needed in order to believe that it was actually the risen Jesus who was standing in their midst, and these wounds are also the proof of the Divine Mercy that God offers to all of us.  His mercy flows like liquid from his body, an uninterrupted flowing stream of forgiveness

The disciples rejoiced when they saw the risen Lord (Jn 20:20) and so do we.  In fact, it was this joy, witnessed in the lives of the disciples that drew others to believe the good news of the Resurrection.  In their joy, believers even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them (Acts 5:16) so that they might be healed.  Throughout the centuries that have come and gone since the time of the first disciples, many have followed in their footsteps: hoping that the shadow of faith will fall upon them and that they will experience the mercy and forgiveness of the Lord.

The key to our faith, to our joy, to the celebration that happens here every week is the gift of mercy and love that was given once for all time by Jesus whose love flowed like water and blood.  This love continues to flow today from the heart of our merciful God, inviting all people to encounter his mercy in their own lives and to share mercy with others – with friends, colleagues, strangers – with all those who we meet.  In intimate encounters and in unexpected spaces, Jesus is calling all of us this week to be signs of his divine mercy and forgiveness, and to proclaim to everyone we meet: Peace be with you (Jn 20:21) … doubt no more, only believe! (Jn 20:27)