ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear Friends in the Risen Christ,

Ten years ago on this Second Sunday of Easter our Holy Father Pope John Paul II canonized in Saint Peter’s Square a Polish nun who was born in 1905 and who lived a short life. Her great mission in life was to draw attention to the fact that Jesus is merciful, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He is the God of mercy.

At the canonization of Blessed Faustina Kowalska the Holy Father also changed the name of this Sunday from the Second Sunday of Easter to its new title which is the Second Sunday of Easter or Divine Mercy Sunday. Actually, quite independently of Saint Faustina Kowalska, the liturgy of the Church itself speaks to us today in a wonderful way about God’s mercy, about Divine Mercy, and this shows us that the message that this great Saint—Saint Faustina—proclaimed is a message that is rooted in the Sacred Scriptures. It is a message that is part of the very deposit of our faith. And, so, the role of Saint Faustina was simply to draw attention, in a very spectacular way, to something that God Himself has revealed in His holy word: that He is the God of mercy, that Jesus Christ is our merciful Savior.

We want to take a few moments this afternoon to consider the Gospel reading that we have heard, to reflect on this stupendous message that is presented to us by Saint John. Today this Gospel takes us back, first of all, to Easter Sunday itself. This is where the Gospel opens up. Saint John says: “On the evening of that first day of the week”—the first Easter Sunday—“when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”

We have to realize that the encounter of the Apostles with the Risen Lord is the first time for the group of them to meet Jesus after His Death and Resurrection. We have to keep in mind that only a couple of days have passed since the events in the Garden of Olives, in the house of the high priest and in the praetorium. Only a few days have passed since the Apostles abandoned Christ; only a few days have passed since Peter denied Him. And now Jesus is victorious, Jesus is alive. He has been raised from the dead by His Father as a sign of the Father’s total acceptance of His Sacrifice. And yet the Apostles, on this Easter Sunday afternoon, are still filled with fear. Then Jesus appears to them. He comes into the room, with the doors locked. The Risen Lord comes into their midst. Not only are they filled with fear, but in meeting Jesus for the first time after their very poor record, they are also filled with shame and guilt. Being in the presence of Jesus Christ, the Risen One, the Apostles are truly weighed down by their sins.

Jesus takes this opportunity not to scold them, not to say: Here I am. You abandoned me. You did not trust me. Jesus takes this opportunity to give them His first message after His Resurrection from the dead. And that first message is: “Peace be with you.” In His Risen body He brings them peace, not a scolding, not a condemnation—only peace. And then He shows them His hands and His side and once again He repeats the words: “Peace be with you.” This is the mercy of the Risen Jesus. Something else very important follows and it is this. This is the moment—Easter Sunday—that Jesus chooses, when the Apostles are supremely conscious of their sins, when they are supremely conscious of their weakness, when they are filled with fear and shame and guilt—this is the moment that Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord, the Son of God chooses in order to communicate to these weak men the great power of forgiving sins. He does this not because they are any better than their brothers and sisters, but simply because it is His will to give to His Church a great treasure and that treasure is the forgiveness of sins. It is the great gift of God’s mercy in all its concentration. And, so, Jesus says to the Apostles—in this particular moment, in this particular psychological condition in which they find themselves—“Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

In the Sacrament of Penance we see the supreme manifestation of God’s mercy. And the Sacrament of Penance, the Sacrament of the forgiveness of sins, the Sacrament of Confession, the Sacrament of Reconciliation becomes the Easter gift of Jesus Christ to His Church. Jesus knows that throughout the ages you and I will need His mercy and His forgiveness and His pardon. That is why He invests His Apostles with this power, not because of them, but because He is merciful and powerful. This is the reason today that, in the liturgy of the Church, we read this beautiful Gospel, we proclaim this beautiful Gospel of mercy, and this is why the Church now explicitly says that the Second Sunday of Easter, when this Gospel is proclaimed, is to be called henceforth the Second Sunday of Easter or Divine Mercy Sunday.

What is this Divine Mercy? Divine Mercy, dear friends—and we know it really by our intuition, but let us spell it out—is simply God’s love for us in the face of our weaknesses, God’s love in the face of our sins, God’s love as it reaches down and touches our needs. That is what mercy is. Love on God’s part, plus need or weakness or sinfulness on our part, equals Divine Mercy. Today we pause and celebrate this Divine Mercy.

As the people of God, however, there are two responses that we must give to Jesus. We cannot listen to this Gospel, to this great proclamation of God’s mercy without a response on our part. The response is a response of gratitude, of deep thankfulness to God that He reaches out and in His loving kindness gives us the forgiveness of our sins in the Sacrament of Penance.

Our gratitude cannot stop there. Our gratitude has to express itself in trust. And, so, our response to all of this, when we see the great Easter gift of Jesus Christ to His Church, is: Jesus, I trust in you! Jesus, we trust in you! If Jesus has done all this, if He has died on the Cross to forgive our sins, if he has established this great gift of His mercy within the Church, in the Sacrament of Penance, then, yes, we must trust. We must trust that this mercy is for us and for all our brothers and sisters. That was the great prayer of Saint Faustina. Actually, in her diary, she speaks of her visions with Christ Himself, and He constantly encouraged her to say this prayer: “Jesus, I trust in you!” See how all this is based on God’s revelation. It is based on God’s word. It is because God is merciful, because Jesus Christ the Risen Lord gives His Easter gift—the forgiveness of sins—to the Church for all ages that we trust.

Gratitude, trust and still one more response is necessary on our part. And it is this. If we have received mercy, then we must show mercy. If we have been forgiven, we must forgive. If we have been shown compassion, we must show compassion. There is no doubt about it. The Gospel parables go on to explain to us that, yes, anyone who is forgiven must forgive. Dear friends: this too is our response on this beautiful Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter or Divine Mercy Sunday, when we proclaim the mercy of God, especially as it is revealed in the great Easter gift of the Risen Lord, the Sacrament of Penance, the Sacrament of God’s mercy.

Once again, the opportunity for Confession presented itself earlier today. Sometimes we do not think of the Sacrament of Penance as being appropriate to Easter, but today in the Gospel we see that the Sacrament of Penance is Christ’s Easter gift to His Church. For this reason, on this Second Sunday of Easter or Divine Mercy Sunday, the Church generously made Confessions available here earlier in this Cathedral Basilica. All this is within the context of our celebration today—the celebration of God’s mercy.

In the Mass booklet today we see the image of Jesus as He appeared to Saint Faustina, as He presented Himself as the merciful Savior. From His Sacred Heart there radiate rays of light—the red rays and the white rays—representing the blood and the water that flowed out of His Sacred Heart when His side was pierced on Calvary. This image is just one more assurance of what is already proclaimed in the word of God. It is only one more confirmation that what we have proclaimed today is the truth of God: Jesus Christ is the merciful Savior of the world. This means that you and I, dear friends, must trust in His mercy. We must bear witness to others of the forgiveness and pardon that we have received, of the compassion that we have experienced. Jesus Christ has been merciful to us and we are called to show mercy in His name. Amen.