Divine Mercy Sunday

04-24-2022Weekly ReflectionFr. Manasseh Iorchir, VC

Welcome to the Second Sunday of Easter. Since the year 2000, the Second Sunday of Easter has been designated Divine Mercy Sunday. On this day, Holy Mother Church invites us to contemplate the mercy of God who showed us the greatest mercy by giving us His Son as a living sacrifice who, by His death on the cross, canceled out our sins once and for all.

In the first reading, we see God demonstrating, through the Apostles, His mercy to as many as believed. The Gospel passage at the liturgy today recounts how the Apostles acquired the authority and mandate to dispense God’s mercy. Eight days after the resurrection of Jesus, the Apostles, who at that point heard of the resurrection but were yet to see him in corporeal form, were gathered in Jerusalem behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. Jesus appeared among them and the first words He said to them were, “Peace be with you.” Recall that the disciples had deserted Him on the night of His arrest and Peter, the leader given to them by Jesus, denied knowing Him. They deserved some rebuke or scolding for their faithlessness, cowardice and infidelity. Jesus disregarded all these and showed them further mercy by commissioning them to become conduits and ministers of the same Divine Mercy. The mandate required the Apostles, and by extension their successors and collaborators, to take the message of God’s love and mercy to the ends of the earth, and even more specifically, to forgive sins through the sacrament of Reconciliation. God’s abundant mercy is generously made available to us through the sacrament of Reconciliation. All we need to do is to humbly admit our sin, acknowledge our need for God’s mercy, express our true contrition and repentance, and to ask and we shall receive mercy.

Something very interesting happened after this first post resurrection appearance of Christ. For whatever reason, Thomas, one of the twelve, was not present. He doubted the story of the Lord’s appearance to the other Apostles when he was intimated and promised to believe only if he saw the Lord and empirically verified the marks of the nails in His hands and the mark of the lance on His side. Jesus extended His merciful disposition to the skeptical Thomas by appearing again to the disciples while Thomas was there and gave him the opportunity to verify the resurrection. Thomas’ response was not only that of verified belief but also a reaffirmation of deep faith in the Divinity and dual nature of the resurrected Christ. He declared, “My Lord and my God.” In Thomas’ confession, God demonstrated the potent fruit of mercy, Divine Mercy brought him to a state of resolute faith he never may have had if Jesus had not shown him mercy.

May the transformative power of the resurrection bestow on us the grace to become the face and Apostles of Divine Mercy in a world in urgent need of compassion. May we extend God’s mercy to the sick, afflicted, hungry, homeless, ignorant and the like; and may we never be afraid or ashamed to approach the sacrament of Reconciliation in order to attain the right relationship with God and our neighbor.

Please be kind and may God bless you.

Fr. Manasseh