INTRODUCTION
Today is Divine Mercy Sunday and the readings make reference to God’s mercy, the necessity for trusting Faith, and our need for the forgiveness of our sins. The opening prayer addresses the Father as “God of everlasting Mercy.” In the Responsorial Psalm (Ps 118), we repeat several times, “His mercy endures forever!” God revealed His mercy, first and foremost, in sending His only-begotten Son to become our Savior and Lord through His suffering, death and Resurrection. Divine Mercy is given to us also in each celebration of the Sacraments, instituted to sanctify us.
FIRST READING: Acts 4:32-35
St. Luke’s Acts of the Apostles gives us a summary of the life of the early Christian community before the Jews and the Romans began their persecutions. We get a glimpse of Divine Mercy in action in today’s selection. The early Christians were so filled with the Holy Spirit that, “no one claimed any of his possessions as his own.” Rather, they “distributed to each according to his need.” This was a community which practiced the sharing love, compassion, and mercy taught by Jesus. It was a witnessing community of “one heart and one mind,” bearing witness to the continued presence of the Risen Lord in their hearts and lives by holding everything in common and distributing to each one according to his or her needs. In a later portion of the Acts, we learn that the early Christian community derived its strength from community prayer, from “the Breaking of the Bread,” and from listening to the teaching of the apostles. Owners of property were few among the early Christians, and the fact that they mixed lovingly at this level with the mass of common folk was astonishing. This passage implies that the Christian community was assuming the nature of a family and beginning to overcome distinctions based on wealth. Also, the authority accorded to the apostles is worthy of note. They were beginning to take on the authority formerly held by Jewish priests.
SECOND READING: 1 John 5:1-6
While the first reading from Acts, calls our attention to the corporal works of mercy, the second reading, taken from St. John’s first letter, focuses on both corporal and spiritual works of mercy. John urges our obedience to the commandments given by God, especially the commandment of love as clarified by Jesus. Loving others as Jesus loves us demands that we treat others with Jesus’ mercy and compassion. John reminds us that everyone who claims to love God, especially one who believes that Jesus is the Christ, has to love all the others whom God has created. We are to conquer the world by putting our Faith in Jesus and in the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, two sacraments of Divine Mercy that Jesus instituted. The “water” refers to Jesus’ baptism, at the beginning of his ministry. The “blood” refers to Jesus’ bloody death at the end of his ministry. Both refer to the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist.
GOSPEL: John 20:19-31
The first part of today’s Gospel (verses 19-23), describes how Jesus entrusted to his apostles his mission of preaching the “Good News” of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness and salvation. This portion of the reading teaches us that Jesus uses the Church as the earthly means of continuing His mission. It also teaches us that the Church needs Jesus as its source of power and authority, and that it becomes Christ’s true messenger only when it perfectly loves and obeys Him. The Risen Lord gives the apostles the authority to forgive sins in His Name. He gives the apostles the power of imparting God’s mercy to the sinner, the gift of forgiving sins from God’s treasury of mercy, in both the Sacrament of Baptism and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In the liturgy, the Church has proclaimed the mercy of God for centuries through the Word of God and the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. The Gospel text also reminds us that the clearest way of expressing our belief in the presence of the Risen Jesus among us is through our own forgiveness of others. We can’t form a lasting Christian community without such forgiveness. Unless we forgive others, our celebration of the Eucharist is just an exercise in liturgical rubrics.
The second part of the Gospel (verses 24-29), presents the fearless apostle St. Thomas in his uncompromising honesty demanding a personal vision of, and physical contact with, the risen Jesus as a condition for his belief. Thomas had not been with the Apostles when Jesus first appeared to them. As a result, he refused to believe. This should serve as a warning to us. It is difficult for us to believe when we do not strengthen ourselves with the fellowship of other believers. When the Lord appeared to Thomas later, He said: “Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed.” The story of Thomas highlights the importance of signs (as we have seen all along in John), but also their limitations in terms of bringing people to Faith. Interestingly, there is never a mention of Thomas touching Jesus’ wounds as he had said he needed to do; his encounter with the risen Lord was, apparently, sufficient to bring him to Faith. Thomas was able to overcome his doubts by seeing the risen Jesus. Modern Christians, who are no longer able to “see” Jesus with their eyes, must believe what they hear. That is why Paul reminds us, “Faith comes from hearing” (Rom 10:17). “This Gospel shows us that Faith comes in different ways to different people. The beloved disciple believes upon seeing the empty tomb (v. 8). Mary believes when the Lord calls her name (v. 16). the disciples must see the risen Lord (v. 20). Thomas says that he must touch the wounds (v. 25)—although that need evaporates once he sees the risen Christ (v. 28). People find various routes to faith.” (www.lectionary.org).
The unique profession of Faith: Thomas, the “doubting” apostle, makes the great profession of faith, “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28). Thomas confesses Jesus in the very words (“My Lord and my God”) used by the Psalmist for Yahweh. According to Raymond Brown, Thomas’ profession of Faith is the ultimate Christological proclamation of the fourth gospel. “My Lord (Kyrios) and my God (Theos)” revealed the late first century church’s realization that Jesus was equal to and One with the Eternal Creator of the universe and of all humankind. Here, the most outrageous doubter of the Resurrection of Jesus utters the greatest confession of belief in the Lord Who rose from the dead. This declaration by the “doubting” Thomas in today’s Gospel is very significant because it is the foundation of our Christian Faith. Our Faith is based on the Divinity of Jesus as proved by His miracles, especially by the supreme miracle of His Resurrection from the dead. Thomas’ profession of Faith is the strongest evidence we have of the Resurrection of Jesus.
LIFE MESSAGES:
1) Let us 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. Finding time for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is another good way to receive Divine Mercy. The Gospel command, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” demands that we show mercy to our fellow human beings always and everywhere. 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.
2) Let us ask God for the Faith that culminates in self-surrender to Him:
Living Faith enables us to see the Risen Lord in everyone and gives us the willingness to render to each one our loving service (“Faith without good works is dead” Jas 2:17). It was this Faith in the Lord and obedience to His missionary command that prompted St. Thomas to travel to India to preach the Gospel among the Hindus, to establish seven Christian communities (known later as “St. Thomas Christians”), and eventually to suffer martyrdom. The Fathers of the Church prescribe the following traditional means to grow in the living and dynamic Faith of St. Thomas the Apostle. a) We must come to know Jesus personally and intimately by our daily and meditative reading of the Bible. b) We must strengthen our Faith by the power of the Holy Spirit through our personal and community prayer. c) We must share in the Divine life of Jesus by frequenting the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist. St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) presents it this way: “If we pray, we will believe; if we believe, we will love; if we love, we will serve. Only then we put our love of God into action.”
3) We need to meet the challenges for an authentic Christian life:
“I will not believe unless I see” (Jn 20:25). This “seeing” is what others demand of us. They ask that we reflect Jesus, the Risen Lord, in our lives by our selfless love, unconditional forgiveness, and humble service. The integrity of our lives bears a fundamental witness to others who want to see the Risen Lord, alive and active, working in us. Christ’s mercy shines forth from us whenever we reach out to the poor, the needy and the marginalized, as St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) did. His mercy shines forth as we remain open to those who struggle in Faith, as did the Apostle Thomas in today’s Gospel. We should be able to appreciate the presence of Jesus, crucified and raised, in our own suffering and in our suffering brothers and sisters, thus recognizing the glorified wounds of the Risen Lord in the suffering of others.
4) Like St. Thomas, let us use our skepticism 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. This will naturally lead us to a personal encounter with Jesus through our prayer, study of the Word of God, and frequenting of the Sacraments. However, we must never forget the fact that our Faith is not our own doing but is a gift from God. Hence, we need to augment our Faith every day by prayer so that we may join St. Thomas in his proclamation: “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28). (Fr. Anthony Kadavil).
5) It does not matter how we begin our story but how we end it.
The story about Thomas in this gospel pericope moved from an “unserious disciple” to a faith-filled disciple. I am sure some of us are yet to break away from the stereotype we have about Thomas right from the very first day we heard about him. He is still that “doubting Thomas”. This equally shows how we perceive each other. But Thomas stands as an example for all those who do not allow what others say about them to pull them behind. He was not among those counted as first to see the Risen Lord, yet he was determined to see Him. His doubt was not a pessimistic skepticism but an answer seeking doubt. The end of the story justified it. There is nothing in the story that showed that Thomas actually touched the wounds of Jesus, but he was the most happy among all the apostles and the only one to profess a personal faith in the Risen Lord: “My Lord and my God”.
It doesn’t matter when we receive our faith in God but what matters is the quality of the faith we have. Some of us might be Christians from birth but it is not a guarantee that we are truly Christians. There are those whom we may consider as sinners but their hearts are pure before God, and they love the other more than those of us who sometimes bear hearts full of hatred and wickedness.
It is better to be a Thomas who saw the Lord after eight days and made a radical profession of faith than to be “the others” who saw the Lord first and made less impact to the faith of the resurrection.
May Thomas be an inspiration for those who are yet to have a personal encounter with God to know that though they might have missed Him the “first day” but there is the “eighth day”.
May Thomas help us all to understand that though our faith is the faith of the Church but it is also personal. We need to break away from the “we faith” to “my faith” that allows for personal and concrete and life-changing experience with the Lord.
PRAYER
God of everlasting mercy, who in the recurrence the Pascal feast kindle the faith of the people you have made your own, increase, we pray, the grace you have bestowed, that all may grasp and rightly understand in what font they have been washed, by whose Spirit they have been reborn, and by whose Blood they have been redeemed. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
PAX VOBIS!
