DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY
As we celebrate today the Divine Mercy
Sunday, the Lord invites us to enter into the boundless mercy and compassion of
God. When Jesus died and was pierced
through with a sword, blood (representing the Eucharist) and water (representing
Baptism) flowed out from his breast. The
heart of God was opened to the world! It
was the moment when humanity was invited to enter into the Paschal Mystery of
Christ.
To the world, the crucifixion of Jesus,
who died as a criminal, was a total failure. To Jesus’ disciples it was not
just the death of their master but also the death of their hope for the
messiah. The Father’s abandonment to
Jesus on the cross was also the abandonment of God to the cause that Jesus
worked for. To the disciples it was as
if Jesus abandoned them like orphans.
But this feeling of abandonment was short-lived! It was in this most
depressing situation that the Risen Christ appeared. The first thing he
said to them was “Peace be with you.” The Lord took away
their fears and gave them peace. He had to show them the signs of His
Passion: His wounded side and hands to ascertain that the Crucified Jesus was
now the Glorified Christ!
The Risen Christ did not just greet them
and give them peace but empowered them as well with the gift of the
Mission: “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”
Suddenly the “losers” were now transformed into victors. With this empowerment,
the apostles received the mission that the Church will have to carry through until the end of time.
While the other apostles were shrouded
with fear, Thomas on the other hand was full of doubt. He refused
to believe in the Risen Christ and he needed some empirical proofs that can be
verified by the external senses: to see is to believe. When he stretched
out his hands to feel the fresh wounds of the side of Christ, he uttered
his irrevocable profession of faith; “My Lord and my God.” Jesus
proclaimed “You believe because you see me. Blessed are those who
believe although they have not seen.”
Fear and doubt! These are the poisons
that cripple those who live outside the resurrection. Just like the
apostles prior to the resurrection, our lives without our experience of the
Risen Christ are surrounded by many forms of fear. Human as we are,
in our weakness we have all the reasons to be afraid of as we confront the
uncertainties of life: poverty, tragedies, sickness, depression, failures,
etc. Like the apostles, we also cringe in the deepest recesses of our
fears. In moments of doubt when we are not certain to believe because of the
seemingly absence of God: when life seems but a series of suffering and
pain; when we have nothing to hold on to; when there is no light at the end of
the tunnel and when there is almost nothing left to hope for.... Christ appears to us and opens his heart so that we enter into the boundless love and mercy of God!
The Church is at her best when she is
totally poor, naked and abandoned because she, as the bride of Christ, best
resembles her groom. Like the Church, as disciples of Jesus, we become
closest to God in our absolute nothingness because it is when we best resemble
our Master. In this experience of emptiness, Jesus gives us
fullness of life. This is what peace is all about: when our life is
in harmony with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world.
Even today, the resurrection stories continues. The Risen Christ
continues to show himself to the many doubting Tomases around us. The Risen
Christ reveals Himself to us through a friend, a neighbor, a stranger.
In this way, the Easter journey continues through us….
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