2nd Sunday of Easter
Divine Mercy Sunday
April 24, 2022
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen/Holy Rosary Parish
The Limits of Our Forbearance
If we stop to think about it, we will quickly recognize the limits of our patience and mercy towards others. When someone irritates us, or harms our reputations, or spoils our plans – it is difficult to stay calm and to forgive that person from our heart. . . . Sometimes, though, the shoe is on the other foot. We may knowingly irritate others, besmirch their reputations, or spoil their plans. Worse still, we may be indifferent to the harm we have caused. And even if we recognize our need for forgiveness, we may be too proud or self-sufficient to ask for it.
Given the limits of our patience and mercy, as well as our need for forgiveness, what does this “Sunday of Divine Mercy” say to us? What should this celebration of God’s mercy mean for our daily lives? Let me suggest two messages to take away from this Mass. First, we need to re-discover God’s bottomless mercies, the depths of us his love for us and his readiness to forgive us. A second message is this: responding to God’s mercy is challenging. Truly to accept the mercy of God into our hearts means that our lives must change.
The Bottomless Depths Divine Mercy
So, let’s begin with a brief reflection on God’s boundless mercy. The Gospels tell us that Jesus went from place to place, preaching the Kingdom of God, healing the sick, and raising the dead. But before Jesus healed people physically, he healed them spiritually. In fact, his physical cures were signs of spiritual healing, the healing of the soul. In Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus healed a paralytic, his first words to him were not “Rise and walk”, but rather, “Your sins are forgiven!” Perhaps Jesus’ words dismayed the paralytic who simply wanted to walk again. Certainly, his words angered the Scribes and Pharisees, and why? Because they thought Jesus was usurping God’s prerogative to forgive sin. “Only God can forgive sin,” they said, ‘not this itinerant preacher!’
But in Jesus, we meet the God who alone can forgive sins. His very Name, the Name of Jesus, means, “God saves”! And his miracles of healing – both physical and spiritual – were but the run-up to the storm of mercy he would unleash by his Death and Resurrection. In his suffering and death, Jesus’ humanity was shattered, not just his body, but also his human will, mind, and heart. The cross and the nails that so shattered Jesus became the means, the instrument by which his Father’s mercy passed through his broken humanity. By being crushed for our sins, Jesus revealed the depth of God’s mercy . . . . Rising from the dead, Jesus revealed in his glorified humanity “a love strong as death”, that love which alone can restore our humanity.
On the very evening of that day of days when he rose from the dead, the Risen Lord passed through doors that had been locked out of fear. He stood in the midst of his disciples, and said, “Peace be with you!” As he did so, he looked with the eyes of mercy upon the disciples, trembling with fear. They had abandoned him in the hour of death and now they feared for their own lives. Jesus does not take them to task but rather breathes Holy Spirit upon them, thereby empowering them and their successors to forgive sin. The Risen Lord makes of them heralds, ministers, and agents of the mercy which he procured for the human race by his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven,” he says to them – words that reverberate every time a priest in a confessional says, “I absolve you from your sins!”
Divine Mercy Sunday aims to immerse us in the ocean of God’s mercy. If we absorb what we celebrate in this Holy Mass, then Jesus’ Death and Resurrection will not remain at 30,000 feet – like some lofty idea or an event in the misty past with no bearing on our daily lives. Instead, it will hit home – in our minds, our hearts, the depths of our souls. We will discover in the Death and Resurrection of the Christ the lengths to which the Father of Mercies went to rescue us from our sins, and the ready availability of his limitless mercies now, in the ministry of the Church, especially the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Sacrament of Mercy.
Our Response to God’s Mercy
How, then, shall we respond shall to God’s mercy? And what does it mean truly to accept God’s mercy into our hearts? To answer that question, let us look at what ordinary experience teaches us. Let us say you have hurt someone you really love, perhaps a spouse or a parent. Coldness of heart replaces the warmth of love. Tension enters into a tranquil relationship. Distance triumphs over intimacy. But suppose this loved one takes the initiative and reaches out to forgive you. Unless you are made of stone, you will be relieved, grateful, and joyful – because your loved one has given you a great gift, a gift of selfless love and mercy. Does that mean it is okay to go back to business as usual? Or does accepting another’s forgiveness not mean that you and I have to change – not only our outward behavior but also what is in the depths of our hearts? Forgiveness is not a “get out of jail free” card! It is a new beginning!
It is not too much different when we respond to the gift of God’s mercy. All of us love God but often find that our sins have alienated us from God. Our relationship with God cools. Our tranquility of heart ceases. God seems distant. Yet it God who always takes the initiative to heal the breach, he the Father of Mercies, whose crucified and risen Son touches the deepest wounds of our existence! When we hear of God’s forgiveness in Scripture, when God confides his desire to forgive us in moments of private prayer, when our own heart aches with the separation from God our sins have caused – then let us joyfully open our hearts to his selfless gift of mercy, and do so by making a good, unburdening confession of our sins in the Sacrament of Penance, and resolving to sin no more and to avoid the occasions of sin.
Only a humble, contrite heart can receive the gift of mercy. When we truly take to heart the gift of Divine Mercy, it shatters our humanity! It shatters illusions we may have of self-sufficiency or superiority over others, illusions that our sins are someone else’s fault, or really not too serious. When the light and love of the Risen Lord passes through our broken hearts, not only are our illusions dispelled but our humanity is restored from within. In that moment of grace, we can hear Jesus saying to us, “Peace be with you!” And once the peace of Christ enters our hearts, our lives change. We may stumble and fall, even repeatedly, but God’s grace will be at work in us, patiently mending our hearts, replacing vice with virtue, making us luminous with love. As the work of Divine Mercy progresses, our capacity to love and forgive others will be purified and will expand, as will our eagerness to engage in works of mercy and compassion, such as caring for the poor, welcoming the stranger, and consoling the sorrowful. Then, like the Apostles, we become credible witnesses to Jesus’ power to save! May God bless us and keep us always in his love!