ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear Friends in our Lord Jesus Christ,

How joyful it is for us to be gathered in this Cathedral Basilica, like the Apostles in the Upper Room, to experience and to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the mercy of God. With exultation, we say with Saint Peter: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pt 1:3). On this Second Sunday of Easter, we particularly rejoice in the gift of Divine Mercy, the Mercy which is revealed in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Today, it is appropriate to recall that the Servant of God Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Dives in Misericordia, described mercy as God’s greatest attribute. In the encyclical, Pope John Paul II reminds us of the grandeur of the mystery of the invisible God, who “dwells in unapproachable light” (no. 2). While He makes Himself known in the splendor and beauty of creation, God is only fully revealed in Jesus Christ. “In Christ and through Christ, God also becomes visible in His mercy.... Not only does he speak of it and explain it by the use of comparisons and parables, but above all he himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He himself, in a certain sense, is mercy” (no. 2). In Christ, we see then how close God is to the human family, “especially when man is suffering, when he is under threat at the very heart of his existence and dignity” (no. 2).

Throughout the sacred season of Lent, during Holy Week, in the Easter Triduum, and in celebrating the Octave of Easter, the Church contemplates the nearness of Jesus to the human family. We reflect on all that Jesus endured for us—the depths of His love for us as revealed in His sorrowful Passion and Death—and in the hope bestowed upon us in the triumph of the Resurrection. All of this was endured by the Sinless One so that we who are sinners might know the boundless love of God and the lengths to which God will go to reveal to us His mercy and to draw us to Himself.

Saint John the Evangelist describes for us in beautiful detail the events of Easter Sunday evening when, in the Upper Room crowded with the disciples in the midst of their heartache and confusion, Jesus appeared. Grief-stricken by the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus, ashamed at their abandonment of Jesus in his hour of need, the Apostles rightly might have expected from Jesus a severe reprimand. Instead, Jesus greeted them with a message of “Peace,” revealed the wounds in his hands, feet and side, breathed upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit, and bestowed upon His Church the Easter gift of the Sacrament of Penance, the sacrament through which the mercy of God is bestowed upon us sinners. At that moment, Jesus proclaimed that, just as He had redeemed all people, acting through his sacred humanity which was handed over to death for the redemption of the world, so He would continue to bestow His Easter gift of pardon and peace, through the humanity of His Apostles, as well as their successors, the Bishops, and the priests who collaborate in the ministry of Bishops, through the Sacrament of Penance. Thus, the great mercy of God continues to be available through the ministry of the Church. For that reason, I thank my brother priests present today, and those in all of the parishes of the Archdiocese, who so faithfully minister to God’s people in the Sacrament of Penance.

It is fitting that this Octave Day of Easter emphasizes the gift of Divine Mercy, the mercy entrusted by Jesus to His Church. Our presence here today also is a testimony to the efforts of the messenger of Divine Mercy, Saint Faustina Kowalska, a young nun, who in early twentieth-century Poland, experienced a revelation of Divine Mercy and was given the task to promote this devotion. Saint Faustina was called by God to announce to our modern world that the love of Christ is a forgiving love, a merciful love. This message is consistent with revelation. God chose Saint Faustina as an instrument to remind our modern world of what the Church has proclaimed for 2,000 years. We consider prayerfully this message in our recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, a powerful petition to our Heavenly Father to pour out abundantly that mercy which Jesus won for us by His Passion.

Furthermore, Saint Faustina related the desire of Jesus that we place our trust in Him. The image of Divine Mercy is signed with the words, Jesus, I trust in you! The Diary of Saint Faustina offers details of a very moving dialogue between Jesus and Saint Faustina. Jesus acknowledges that Faustina has given so much to Him: her life, her love, her good works and her efforts to be holy. However, Jesus indicates to Faustina that there is something which she has not yet given to Him. When Faustina questions what this is, Jesus responds in effect: “You have not given me what is so peculiarly and specifically your own. You must entrust your weakness and sinfulness to my mercy.” Jesus does not ask for our sins; He asks for us to entrust our lives as they are to His great mercy. He desires that we renounce sin, but also to be convinced that His mercy has the power to obliterate all our sins, that His Blood is able to wash away all our sins. Jesus truly wants us to trust in Him!

In today’s Gospel passage, Saint John the Evangelist admits us to the Upper Room on the eighth day after that first Easter. We recall that, on Easter Sunday, Thomas the Apostle was not present. We are told that Thomas refused to believe that Jesus rose from the dead until he could see for himself and touch the wounds in the risen body of Christ. When Jesus appears to Thomas, the moment is sublime. He invites Thomas to touch His wounds: “Do not be unbelieving, but believe” (Jn 20:27). Thomas then makes an act of faith which is at the very core of the Easter mystery as he declares Jesus “my Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28).

“By means of touch and the sharing of a meal,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “the risen Jesus establishes direct contact with his disciples. He invites them in this way to recognize that he is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified, for it still bears the traces of his passion” (CCC, 645).

At this Mass, we encounter the same Risen Jesus, wounded for our sins yet victorious over sin and death. He comes to us in the Holy Eucharist, and in our “Amen” we declare with Saint Thomas that Jesus in the Eucharist is “my Lord and my God.” As we kneel in adoration before our Eucharistic Lord, we contemplate those glorious wounds which forever are trophies of the victory of Divine Mercy. In our prayerful recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, we implore the grace to be truly grateful for the gift of mercy; we beg the grace of a genuine trust in the mercy of God, and we intercede that the entire world, one soul at a time, may be transformed by the mercy of God. As we are told in the Acts of the Apostles: “And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved” (Acts 2: 47).

Like Saint Faustina, we live in a world troubled by darkness, violence and sin. Jesus invites each of us, by means of His sacraments and by devotion to His mercy, to draw others to trust in Him. The task seems enormous and we seem so insignificant. Yet, the power we possess is from Jesus Himself and it is the ability to intercede for the world. Pray for the conversion of sinners! Pray for peace in the world! Pray for that abiding trust which enables us to place at the pierced feet of Jesus all of our weakness and sinfulness. Confident in His mercy, we can tell everyone about the transforming gift of Divine Mercy.

Jesus, I trust in you! Amen.