Homily for the Octave of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, April 17, 2024. The Gospel of St. John 20:19-31. Theme: Mercy From the Fountain of Life
In the year 2000, Pope St. John Paul II declared the Second Sunday of Easter to be celebrated as “Divine Mercy Sunday”. He did this to fulfill a request made by Jesus through the spiritual experiences of St. Faustina Kowalska, a 20th century Polish nun and mystic. And so the Scriptures and prayers of our liturgy today align beautifully with the devotion to the merciful love of Jesus which is symbolized for us in the image of Divine Mercy that he asked to be painted and distributed. The fundamental purpose of this image is to help us truly live the words that are inscribed upon it, “Jesus, I trust in you”.
In this painting, Jesus gazes at us with a look of deep compassion. His posture is shown as if he is walking towards us, indicating that he wants to come into our lives spiritually through the instrumentality of this image. One hand is raised in blessing us while the other touches his chest from which two rays shine forth, a pale one and a red one. These symbolize the blood and water that gushed forth from his heart when it was pierced by the soldier’s lance.
Our second reading speaks about these two streams of mercy as witnesses to the Lord’s saving death on the cross. This means that on the natural level they are proof that he died. They give testimony that his heart was pierced causing the very lifeblood and cardiac water to pour out in testimony to the fact. But on the mystical supernatural level they are the streams of grace and mercy that flow to us from the Heart of Christ as the Fountain of Life. Through this Blood and Water we are washed spiritually clean of sin and put into a right relationship of love and union with God.
But Jesus knows us and that we often stray from this path and leave the ways of righteousness. He calls us back, again and again, to the Fountain of Life. Through the Divine Mercy devotion, which echoes his Gospel, He assures us that forgiveness is ours for the asking whenever we repent and turn back to him with contrite hearts. He even makes the bold promise that the greater our sin, the greater right we have to his mercy! He reminds us of something we too often forget: that God’s mercy is like a huge immense ocean and our sins are only a tiny drop that gets dissolved in that healing water. So often, too often actually, we are tempted to turn that around and fall for the lie that our darkest sins are beyond God’s reach and we allow them to haunt us even after we’ve asked forgiveness.
Perhaps most amazing of all Christ’s words to St. Faustina was the promise he made about Mercy Sunday. He declared that, “whoever approaches the Fountain of Life on this day (Mercy Sunday) will be granted complete remission of sins and punishment." This means that not only are all our sins taken away, but so is any punishment our sins deserve in this world or the next! That’s totally amazing! Could it be true? Well, the Divine Mercy events are only “private revelation” which means that even after the Church had investigated and approved them, we are still totally free to accept or reject them as authentic. But I think that we can easily admit their legitimacy because of the many astounding miracles that have taken place through the Divine Mercy devotion and the intercession of St. Faustina. So on Divine Mercy Sunday we can confidently approach the Fountain of Life, which is the Pierced but Risen Heart of Jesus, and with great trust we can confess our sins. With sincere devotion we can receive Holy Communion with solid hope in the promises of Jesus.
But Our Lord wants this devotion to His Divine Mercy to be something more in our daily lives than just a picture and a promise. He wants it to transform us so that we can live and act as people who both claim his mercy for ourselves and allow it to flow through us to others. The message and mission of mercy to which he calls each one of us, is literally as simple and easy to remember as A, B and C.
A — Ask. Ask for His mercy. We can invoke God’s mercy for ourselves, our family and friends, as well as for our nation and the whole world, especially by praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
B — Become. Become a merciful person to others. Jesus said in the Gospels that the merciful are blessed and that we will receive mercy to the same extent that we choose to show mercy to others. He’s telling us that we each individually set the limit as to how much of God’s mercy we will be ours.
And finally,
C. Confidence. Completely trust in Jesus. This is the heart of the message of Divine Mercy, just as it is the very heart of the Gospel itself. What this means is that no matter who we are, no matter what choices we may have made, no matter where we find ourselves today, Jesus has his arms out, wide open to receive and embrace us. Just gaze upon a crucifix to see what this unconditional open-armed love looks like. And while looking at that crucifix notice his pierced side from which the Blood and Water flowed as witnesses to his life-saving, life-giving and life-changing mercy,
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