CHRIST IS THE FACE OF GOD’S DIVINE MERCY
Besides holiness and nature, mercy is another fundamental nature of God. God’s mercy is inexhaustible and unfathomable. Jesus Christ is the face of God’s mercy among us. This is why the feast or devotion to the Divine Mercy is one of the revelatory feasts of God himself to us.
Hence, Divine Mercy is God’s unfathomable grace! It is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the Risen Christ and offers to humanity. Devotion to Divine Mercy Sunday grew rapidly after Pope Saint John Paul II designated it.
GOD IS NOT A MORALIST: CHRIST IS THE FACE OF GOD’S DIVINE MERCY
The Divine Mercy of God is the most evident proof that God is not a moralist, legalist, or sadist bent on eternal punishment for sinners. It is the unfathomable mercy and grace at work in us, even in our sinful state.
“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
“Where sin abounds, grace (or mercy) abounds much more.” Romans 5:20
“The Lord is merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” Ps. 103:8-10.
OUR THEME: CHRIST IS THE FACE OF GOD’S DIVINE MERCY
The readings of this Sunday invite us to profound mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. We need a trusting Faith in the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus´ suffering, death, and Resurrection.
The biblical post-resurrection events are important to overcome the scandal of a dead man rising to life after three days. Indeed, the resurrection is inexplicable. It is a religious experience, a faith encounter with the Risen Lord who showed and continues to show himself to those who long and seek him out in their life, either for a physical or spiritual resurrection.
FIRST READING: ACTS 5:12-16
The first reading gives us a vivid picture of true fraternal and communal living in the early Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It was a Christian community of truthfulness, equity, justice and fairness. Hence, their testimonies through constant prayer, fellowship, Eucharistic meal, and apostolic teaching brought joy, peace, an increase in number, wonders and signs.
Hence, with a sense of high morale and healing, the early Christian Church were encouraged to give testimony to the Resurrected Christ. The healing mercy of God through Peter and the apostles restored many to health and freedom from evil.
Today, the Church of Christ, through the sacrament of reconciliation, continues to heal and restore to health of body, mind and spirit. Equally, the awesome sacrament liberates from the clutches of evil and grants the unique freedom of the sons and daughters of god.
PSALM 117 or 118
The psalm invites us to reflect on the everlasting and enduring nature of the mercy and love of God to all, especially to sinners in need of his saving grace and mercy.
In the responsorial Psalm, we repeat several times, “His mercy endures forever!” God revealed His mercy, first and foremost, in sending His only begotten Son to become our Saviour and Lord through His suffering, death, and Resurrection. Divine Mercy is given to us also in each celebration
SECOND READING: REVELATION 1:9-13, 17-19
The second reading, taken from the Book of Revelation given by Jesus to the Apostle John in exile on Patmos, was intended to comfort and bolster the Faith of persecuted Christians for all time.
The reading assures us of the presence of the merciful Lord in our lives and encourages all of us to fight fear with Faith, and trepidation about the future with trust and Hope. The Risen Christ’s words are: Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
This is not only a vision where John sees risen Jesus, in the form of the glorious Son of Man, with victory and power. It is an assurance or a guarantee of the perpetual presence of the Risen Christ in the lives and affairs of the Church and individuals.
THE GOSPEL: JOHN 20: 19-31
In the Gospel of John 20:19-31, the Risen and Empathic Christ continues to appear. He reappears to the fearful disciples, assuring them of his realness and putting their doubts and reservations about him to rest.
FIRST PART: JESUS COMFORT HIS DISCIPLES
- The Risen Lord comforted the depressed community of his disciples with a greeting of peace.
- Christ met them in the fellowship of the community.
- Thomas was not around and did not encounter the risen Christ.
- Christ reappears to reaffirm Thomas’s uncertainty and doubts with his presence, and there is overflowing joy and deepening faith.
- The doubting Thomas affirms a solid faith in the Risen Christ after a personal experience: My Lord and my God.
- This declaration is an eternal blessing for those who believe in the Risen Christ without physical verification, but by faith alone.
JESUS COMMISSIONED THEM TO BE INSTRUMENTS OF MERCY AND RECONCILIATION
On this Divine Mercy Sunday, let us implore the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ and have joy in the infinite merits of His crucifixion and resurrection.
Hence, through the action of the Holy Spirit, Christ sent the apostles to do the Father’s will by teaching, preaching and healing through the forgiveness of sins.
Christ instructed his apostles that, as God had sent him forth, so he sent them forth. It means three things.
(a) It means that Jesus Christ needs the Church, which is exactly what Paul meant when he called the Church “the body of Christ” (Eph. 1:23; 1 Cor.12:12). Therefore, the first thing this means is that Jesus is dependent on his Church.
(b) It also means that the Church needs Jesus. A person who is to be sent out needs someone to send him. Thus, it means the Church is dependent on Jesus. He needs a message to take; he needs a power and an authority to back his message.
He also might need someone to whom he may turn when he is in doubt and difficulty. Without Jesus, the Church has no message. Without him, she has no power or anyone to turn to when up against it.
(c) There remains still another thing. The sending out of the Church by Jesus is the same as the sending out of Jesus by God. However, no one can read the story of the Fourth Gospel without seeing that the relationship between Jesus and God was continually dependent on Jesus’ perfect obedience and perfect love.
Jesus could be God’s messenger only because he rendered perfect obedience and love to Him.
It follows that the Church is fit to be the messenger and the instrument of Christ only when she perfectly loves him and perfectly obeys him
THE CHARACTER OF THOMAS STANDS OUT CLEARLY BEFORE US
(i) He made one mistake. He withdrew from the Christian fellowship. He sought loneliness rather than togetherness. And because he was not there with his fellow Christians, he missed the first coming of Jesus. We miss a great deal when we separate ourselves from the Christian fellowship and try to be alone.
(ii) However, Thomas had two great virtues. He refused to say that he understood what he did not understand, or that he believed what he did not believe. There is an uncompromising honesty about him. He was not the kind of man who would rattle off a creed without understanding what it was all about. Thomas had to be sure–and he was quite right.
THE AIM OF THE GOSPEL JOHN 20:30-31
Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which have not been written in this book. These have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in his name.
It is quite clear that no passage in the gospels better sums up the aim of the writers than this.
(i) It is quite clear that the gospels never set out to give a full account of the life of Jesus. They do not follow him from day to day but are selective. They give us not an exhaustive account of everything that Jesus said or did, but a selection which shows what he was like and the kind of things he was always doing.
(ii) It is also clear that the gospels were not meant to be biographies of Jesus, but appeals to take him as Saviour, Master and Lord. Their aim was not to give information, but to give life.
It was to paint such a picture of Jesus that the reader would be bound to see that the person who could speak and teach and act and heal like this could be none other than the Son of God; and that in that belief, he might find the secret of real life.
It is very important to note that when we approach the gospels as history and biography, we approach them in the wrong spirit. We must read them, not primarily as historians seeking information, but as men and women seeking God.
LESSON OF DIVINE SUNDAY BY FR TONY KADAVIL
- We need to accept God’s invitation to celebrate and practice mercy. One way the Church celebrates God’s mercy throughout the year is through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
- We radiate God’s mercy to others by our actions, our words, and our prayers.
- It is mainly through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy that we practice mercy in our daily lives and become eligible for God’s merciful judgment.
- We need to ask God for the Faith that culminates in self-surrender to God and leads us to serve those we encounter with love.
- “If we pray, we will believe; if we believe, we will love; if we love, we will serve. Only then do we put our love of God into action.”
- We need to meet the challenge for a transparent Christian life — “Unless I see … I will not believe.” (Jn 20:25).
- Like St. Thomas, let us use our scepticism to help us grow in Faith. It is our genuine doubts about the doctrines of our religion that encourage us to study these doctrines more closely and, thus, to grow in our Faith.
- There is a personal encounter with Jesus through our prayer, study of the Word of God, and frequenting of the Sacraments that leads us to growing faith.
- Let us have the courage of our Christian convictions to share our Faith as St. Thomas did. We are not to keep the gift of Faith locked in our hearts, but to share it with our children, our families, and our neighbours, always remembering the words of Pope St. John XXIII: “Every believer in this world must become a spark of Christ’s light.”
- We need to allow Jesus to transform all our doubts into true belief. We must invite him into our lives and ask him to “increase our faith.”
- The desire itself is the first step to being open to receive the gift of faith. The next step is to make that “leap” of trust, giving up our habit of trying to control the way things happen and simply depending on Jesus alone.
- Faith is an adventure which unfolds before us for the rest of our lives, but now a life in God’s name.
OUR PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ, through your Divine and fathomable Mercy, you brought the Living Hope of the Resurrection alive in us. May we always and everywhere experience you in the faith community, in the Eucharist, in the Prayer, in the Sacred Scripture, Tradition and Teaching of the apostolic faith, and so merit your declared blessedness of those who have not seen yet believe in you: The Risen and Powerful Lord and like Thomas declared openly: My Lord and My God. Amen! Aleluya!
