My question for today is for kids and, perhaps, for a few adults as well. It’s this: Have you finished eating all of the chocolate candy in your Easter basket? You’ve had a whole week to do it. Yes, it’s been a week since Easter Sunday. For many of us of a certain age, today is the “First Sunday AFTER Easter.” For those who are post-Vatican II Catholics, this is the “Second Sunday OF Easter.” It depends upon how you look at it. Is Easter done with, completed for another year. If so, then today is, indeed, the First Sunday AFTER Easter.
Or is it still Easter? Today and for the weeks to come. If it is, then today would be the Second Sunday OF Easter … of Eastertide, the fifty days between the Resurrection and Pentecost. Or perhaps for some, Easter goes beyond Pentecost, beyond Trinity Sunday, beyond the feast day of Corpus Christi, of the “Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.” For some, each Sunday Mass, each daily Mass, is celebrated as a “little Easter.”
For many Catholics throughout the world, this Sunday is known not as a numbered feast day, but rather as “Divine Mercy Sunday.” This is especially true for those living in Poland. Last year Karen and I had the privilege of visiting Krakow and the site of the Basilica of Divine Mercy, the location where John Paul II had spent much of his youth and has left a mark of his great love of the celebration of Divine Mercy. No matter where we traveled last year in Poland, there were prayers of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy being recited by groups of the faithful in every church we entered, no matter what time of day it was.
It is fitting that, today, the Church throughout the world celebrates the appearance of Christ to his disciples – and how he brought them his mercy which goes beyond any sense of justice. In seeking justice, one gets exactly what one deserves; what we have earned by our actions … or inactions. In seeking mercy, one is given what has not been earned, but rather receives the gift of forgiveness despite what we have done … or not done.
When Jesus appeared to his disciples behind the locked door of the room where they had last dined with him, he did not bring a condemnation for what had happened to him, a condemnation of how they had deserted him in his time of suffering and during his crucifixion under the Romans. Rather, his first word to them was “Shalom” … “Peace be with you.” He then showed them the wounds in his hands and side. They realized he was not condemning them, he was not there to bring them fear but rather comfort, the comfort of his Peace. They did not respond with dread or fear. Instead, according to the Gospel of John, the disciples “… rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”
The Gospel goes on to tell them – and us: “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’”
Yes, Jesus gave them his forgiveness and with it he gave them a mission: to forgive others as he had forgiven them. He gave them the gift of his divine mercy and sent them forth to bring his divine mercy to others. They saw that his wounds had not disappeared; they were still visible on his hands and side. But these scars of past wounds did not matter as much as the forgiveness he now brought them and his command to share it with others.
Yes, this is what forgiveness and mercy demand. Not that the wounds become invisible. Indeed, the scars may last a lifetime. But rather, despite these previous hurts, we are to continue onwards.
We are reminded that “peace” does not mean the absence of conflict but rather the forgiveness of what has happened. Mercy does not remove the damage which has been done, but rather it bestows comfort on those who have been harmed or who have harmed others … once an internal change has occurred. We are reminded that love has been restored.
In the words of John the Evangelist: “We know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, …… for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.” And what does this faith bring about?
We see the results of this faith in the events of the daily lives of those early Christians described in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. …. There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need.”
On the surface, these actions are strange to many of us here in the 22nd Century. We associate them with so-called “socialism” where those who don’t deserve assistance get it anyway … that those who do not work, live off the efforts of those who do labor and take care of themselves. And yes, for some, this is how the lives of the early Christians are viewed. But beneath the surface, the words are, indeed, much deeper than a description of mere economics.
Beneath the surface, we hear how we are to give up control of the material elements of our lives. We are to give up the view that what we possess is the result of our own actions rather than being gifts of God given to us for our stewardship, our management for the sake of others, rather than for ourselves.
We are asked to believe in the Divine Mercy of God, a mercy that comes with the water of our baptism and the blood of the passion of our Christ whose Resurrection we celebrate today and every day … both here in this place and in the world, itself.
● A world in which he is not visible except through our actions as part of the Body of Christ.
● A world in which we continue to see the wounds and scars of our actions and inactions.
● A world in which we are called to forgive and to be forgiven.
● A world into which we are to bring the Peace of Christ.
Indeed, may the Peace of Christ be with you. May each of us experience his Divine Mercy.
Divine Mercy Sunday; April 15, 2012
Acts 4:32-35; 1 Jn 5:1-6; Jn 20:19-31