Divine Mercy Sunday: John 20:19-31
Once we reach this day, also known as the Second Sunday of Easter, we have completed the Octave of Easter: the eight days when we celebrate, in a most special way, the victory that Christ has won for us through His Passion, Death and Resurrection. Sin and death no longer have ultimate power over us. They can do their worst, but God in His merciful love comes down to us and saves us.
During the Octave of Easter, the Church – so to speak – invites us to take a victory lap with Christ. Sin is overcome. Death is defeated. The way is now open for us to receive the very life of God and to know a peace and joy and love beyond all understanding. As St. John Paul II once remarked, “We are an Easter People, and Alleluia is our song!”
So. Ready to take that victory lap with Christ?
No, you say? Not yet? You don’t feel victorious yet? Is that it?
Well, don’t give up. Don’t lose faith. Even for Jesus’ first followers, the ones who actually were witnesses of His Resurrection, coming to joy was a gradual process. A process in which Jesus showed His mercy throughout. A process that gives us reason to hope that we, too, will come to know the fullness of what we now believe but do not yet quite feel. Christ is Risen. The Dawn has come. The night is over.
If we look carefully at our Gospel reading for today, we can see how the Risen Christ comes to His disciples with great mercy, and how He gives them what they need in order to truly believe.
First of all, let’s look at the setting for this Gospel passage. It was the first day of the week – in other words, the first Easter Sunday. Mary Magdalene discovered that the tomb of Jesus was empty, so she told the disciples. Peter and John ran to the tomb, found it empty, and then left. Mary Magdalene remained, weeping. Finally the Risen Jesus came to her and told her to tell the disciples that He is risen. She went and announced to them, “I have seen the Lord!”
Now, we come to today’s reading. The disciples have just heard the Good News. Mary Magdalene has just told them, “I have seen the Lord!” And what do we see when we see the disciples? Fear. Not joy. The doors are locked, for fear that the leaders who killed Jesus would be coming for them. Fear is keeping them from believing the news about Jesus’ Resurrection. The locked doors not only keep danger out; they also imprison the disciples inside their fear.
Many of us have our own locked doors at the gates of our own hearts. We may have locked them out of fear or anxiety. We may have been deeply hurt or betrayed, and fear more pain. We may have done something we felt was terribly wrong, or that we failed to do a good thing when we had the chance – and we fear that we will fail again and that there is little hope foe us. The locked doors could also be guilt. Possibly anger at what may have been done to us, or the wrongs others have suffered. The locked doors could be self-hatred. They could represent many things. What are your locked doors? What are mine?
How does Jesus respond to the fear of His disciples? He knows what they need in order to overcome their fear and to believe. He offers this to them. He comes to them, in spite of the locked doors of their fears, and shows them His wounds. It is as though He were telling them, “You fear death? Look at me. I died! Here are my wounds. And yet, I now live. I am risen! I have come to give you the same life that I have. Be at peace. The world can do its worst, but it cannot destroy you. You are mine.”
Seeing Jesus’ wounds, the disciples rejoice. Their hearts are now unlocked, open. Jesus again offers them peace. He gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit. With the Spirit in their hearts, they are now sent to continue the mission that Jesus received from the Father. They are also empowered to forgive sins in Jesus’ name, thus unlocking the doors of any heart that is willing to trust in Jesus and His community, His Church.
It is the same with each of us. Jesus knows what we need in order to believe in Him. For some, it may be the steady Christian love and witness of parents and other family members, or a good friend. For others, it may be the right words from Scripture at just the right moment. For still others, it may be a certain book, or homily, or silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. The beauty of the natural world points some people to the Lord. For many of us, the Lord brings our faith to birth and sustains it in a variety of ways. We all need faith in the same Risen Christ. We all need to walk the same path of conversion and growth in faith. But since we do not all start at the same point, our journeys in Christ will not be identical – though they will be similar. The Lord knows what we need, and in His mercy, He provides it.
Note that His mercy for His disciples was not for them alone. Mercy also includes mission. Jesus sends them to continue His work in the world. So, too, He sends each of us to play our own role in the Father’s loving, merciful plan of salvation for human beings and for all of creation. Even if we may feel that our own role is small, it is still important. Only the Lord knows how important it truly is.
But our story isn’t over yet.
We learn that one of the disciples, Thomas, was not with the others that day. We aren’t told why he wasn’t there. He was simply absent. When the others see Thomas later, they tell him, “We have seen the Lord!” He tells them that unless he can touch the wounds of Jesus, he will not believe.
For this, he became known as “Doubting Thomas”. However, we forget that the other disciples did not believe Mary Magdalene’s word, either, and only believed when they saw the Risen Lord’s wounds. Thomas, then, asks as a condition of his faith the same thing that the other disciples were given. He may want to touch the wounds and not simply see them, but the difference isn’t important. Thomas needs the same wounds of Christ that the others did in order to believe.
One week later, the disciples are again gathered, in the same place. This time, Thomas is with them. We aren’t told that the disciples are still afraid, but we are told that the doors of the place are still locked. Again, the Risen Lord comes to the disciples, and immediately speaks to Thomas, offering him all that he asked for in order to believe. Thomas then responds with the greatest statement of faith any disciple makes in John’s Gospel: “My Lord and my God!” Thomas now believes and understands what Jesus meant when He said at the last Supper, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father”. Jesus’ act of mercy to Thomas brought forth a confession of faith from him that has been a source of strength to the Church in every generation since that day.
How does the Thomas story show how the Lord offers mercy to us, now? Let’s look at three ways in which it does so.
First of all, we are all like Thomas in that none of us were there when Jesus first appeared to His disciples. Yet, just as the Lord knew what all the disciples – including Thomas – needed in order to believe, so, too, He knows what we need in order to believe. As He sought out Thomas and invited him to faith, He seeks us out, inviting us to believe, and to grow step by step in faith. Those who saw the Risen Lord had no advantage over those who did not. “Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed.”
Secondly, note the focus on believing through seeing or touching the wounds of Jesus. Why was this so central? The wounds confirmed that the One the disciples saw was indeed Jesus of Nazareth, the One who was crucified and who died. One and the same. The wounds on Jesus’ glorified body were proof of the reality of the Resurrection for His disciples. What does this mean for us? To help bring people to a greater faith in the Lord, we, too, need to show people the wounds of the Risen Lord. How? Remember that each one of us is a member of the Church, the Body of Christ. Each one of us has wounds, weakness, vulnerabilities, failings. Yet, each one of us has been generously blessed by the Lord. Showing the wounds of Christ, then, implies that we have the courage to be vulnerable before others – to tell them of our wounds and of how the Lord has brought us to a new life. My willingness to share with others some of the struggles from my autism in the light of the graces that God has given me through it has opened the door for others to share with me their own wounds and what Christ is doing in their lives. This, too, is mercy.
Finally, let’s look at it from a different angle. Thomas was not with the other disciples when they first saw the Risen Lord. He belonged to the group, and yet he was apart from them for some reason. He did not experience, at that time, what the others did. Yet, a week later, the Lord was willing to give to Thomas what he needed in order to believe. And, as we saw, Thomas definitely believed.
Now, let’s look at our parish communities now. Our communities have unspoken assumptions about the various groupings of people they include. They gear ministries and activities based on these assumptions. Do our youth ministry programs assume that all teenagers are extroverts who learn by doing, for example? Do we assume that all children, or men, or women, or older people, have the same needs as regards faith? If so, we may do well in how we serve many people. But what about the Thomases who don’t fit into those categories? People who wouldn’t do well in youth ministry, or whatever it may be? People who are in a minority in some way – introverts, immigrants who don’t yet understand our culture, people with MS, autistic people, and so on? All these can and do believe, but the typical parish activities may not be all that helpful for them. Just as Jesus showed mercy to Thomas (and to all of us) by giving him what he needed in order to believe, can we show the same mercy to those who do not fit our assumptions, find out what they need, and offer it to them? Jesus spoke of a shepherd who left ninety-nine sheep in search of one stray. We usually interpret that in terms of a ‘sheep’ who has sinned. But what about a sheep that is simply different? Who may be actually a horse or a cow, and therefore needs a different style of ministry? On a personal note, I wonder what the parishes, schools and diocesan offices are doing in my own diocese for the 4000 to 8000 autistic Catholics who live here, not including their immediate families? They need a method of evangelization tailored for them – a method that understands that the way to the autistic’s heart is through the autistic’s brain. We need mercy, too.
We have looked at some ways in which the Risen Christ showed mercy to His disciples, how he does so to us now, and how we can do so for one another based on what He has done for us. May the Lord, our merciful God, be our strength and our joy! May our own mercy to others show them the wounds of the Lord and enable them to find faith and joy in the Lord! May we never fear to be weak and vulnerable before others so that the power of Christ may act, in a supremely merciful way, through us!