April 27, 2014: Second Sunday of Easter,and the Sunday of Divine Mercy
Acts 2:42-47: They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, and many wonders and signs were done.
Psalm 118: Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love is everlasting.
1 Peter 1:3-9: 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. …
John 20:19-31 : [Thomas said]: Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Now a week later his disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them. … Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Today is the Second Sunday of Easter, also known as Divine Mercy Sunday
Scripture Notes from the Sourcebook:
ABOUT THIS SUNDAY: The Sunday of Divine Mercy is a day established by Pope John Paul II as “a perennial invitation to the Christian world, to face with confidence in divine benevolence, the difficulties and trials that humankind will experience in the years to come” (May 23, 2000, the Congregation for Divine worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments). In a way similar to Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday) or the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday), the second Sunday of Easter bears the additional title of Sunday of Divine Mercy. This is not a new solemnity or feast, or does it celebrate a new or separate mystery of redemption, but rather, it leads into the continuing celebration of God’s mercy during Easter time. As the octave day of Easter, the Lectionary readings and prayer texts highlight the mystery of divine compassion that underlies the Church’s Easter faith.
THE FIRST READING: We hear a description of the life of the early believers and what a model it offers to us in their devotion to the apostles’ teaching about Jesus, their commitment to their life in common, their fidelity to prayer and the Eucharist. The witness of their lives filled many with awe. No wonder they attracted new believers!
RESPONSORIAL PSALM 118: This psalm of thanksgiving and praise celebrates God’s mercy and covenant love. The second stanza can readily be the prayer of those who lost hope at the time of Jesus’ arrest and Death (and who were also afraid as we hear in today’s account of the Gospel) but experienced deliverance and renewed hope at his Resurrection. Verse 22 was often cited by the early Christians with reference to Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. He is the foundation of the life of all believers.
SECOND READING: We hear Peter’s prayer of thanksgiving for God’s mercy (a link with today’s psalm) and the hope and the promise received through the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We may fittingly ask ourselves if the joy Peter and these early Christians experienced is ours. Why or why not?
THE GOSPEL: The opening lines of today’s Gospel tell us much about both the disciples and the Risen Jesus. They are behind locked doors in fear and suddenly the Risen Jesus stands in their midst. Yes, it is really Jesus, but he has changed, his “body” is different now, no longer having the same limitations as before his Death. Although we may associate seeing and believing with the outspoken Thomas, note that the other disciples as well rejoiced when they “saw” the Lord. In particular, it was the sight of his wounds that led them to faith.
Notice that this (Easter evening) is the occasion when the Risen Jesus bestows the Holy Spirit on his disciples. Verses 19-23 are the Gospel for Pentecost Sunday this year.
PASTORAL REFLECTION: The outpouring love of Jesus, our God in flesh, is unbelievable. Doubt is inevitable and many days we are like Thomas in need of proof and other days we are the voice of hope for another. Dig out the doubt in your life, the place you think cannot be touched and allow God’s healing rays of mercy to flood into and touch you. As you are healed, be this instrument of healing to another. Stand in their presence and offer love through your being, of your words. Learn to quietly yet brilliantly shine as Jesus does through his divine mercy. Learn and pray the Divine mercy chaplet this week and make it a more regular routine. -- 2014 Sourcebook for Sundays, Seasons & Weekends
The Answer
Not darkness but twilight
In which even the best
of minds must make its way
now. And slowly the questions
occur, vague but formidable
for all that. We pass our hands
over their surface like blind
men feeling for the mechanism
that will swing them aside. They
yield, but only to re-form
as new problems; and one
does not even do that
but towers immovable
before us.
Is there no way
of other thought of answering
its challenge? There is an anticipation
of other thought of answering
its challenge? There is an anticipation
of it to the point of
dying. There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.
- RS Thomas
Gospel Commentary from the Irish Dominicans
The year was about 90 A.D. John's generation was disappearing; none of the younger Christians had known Jesus in the flesh, nor had they witnessed his appearances after the Resurrection. John's gospel wants to include them. "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Thomas refused to believe what he had not seen; later he saw and believed. What did he see? Nothing that a sceptic couldn’t reasonably doubt. "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead" (Luke 16:30). It takes more than eye-witnessing to make faith. A faith that restricts itself to what is evident to the senses and reason is faith in reason, not faith in God or in Jesus…. Religious faith is not a balance of evidence but an opening of the mind and heart.
Is our faith irrational then? The traditional answer is no: it is not against reason, but beyond it, nevertheless overlapping in part. There is a strong temptation to remain within that overlap, effectively reducing the faith to a kind of "philosophy for the millions." If a person wanted to discredit the faith, the best way would be to argue weakly in its favour. In rejecting the arguments, people would also reject the faith. Sadly, this is just what we often do.
An argument is like a lock; we talk about 'clinching' an argument. It is always useful to ask yourself what you have won when you have won an argument. What have you pinned down and enclosed, what do you now have in your grip? It can often be a lonely thing to win an argument; you are left with a little patch that you have identified with yourself, and you have missed the wide world.
The disciples had locked themselves in. Fear was their motive, as it is the motive behind all locks. Suddenly "Jesus came and stood among them." It does not say that he knocked on the door and asked to be admitted: they would not have believed him anyway. It does not say he rattled keys in the lock: that would have frightened them even more. Inexplicably, against all sense and reason, he stood among them; he stood within the tight circle of their fear. Fear is a lock that can be opened only from the inside.
Jesus still stands within the sealed and guarded heart, if we dare to let ourselves believe it.
--- Donagh O’Shea, for Today’s Good News, the website of the Dominicans of Ireland-________________________________________________________________________
ABOUT “DOUBTING” THOMAS: It is unexpected, but extraordinarily convincing, that the one absolutely unequivocal statement, in the whole Gospel, of the Divinity of Jesus should come from Doubting Thomas. It is the only place where the word “God” is used of him without qualification of any kind, and in the most unambiguous form of words (not merely theos but ho theos mou with the definite article). And this [is], not ecstatically, or with a cry of astonishment, but with flat conviction, as of one acknowledging irrefragable evidence: “2 + 2 = 4,” “That is the sun in the sky,” “You are my Lord and my God.” – Dorothy Sayers
“The sacred moments, the moments of miracle, are often the everyday moments, the moments which, if we do not look with more than our eyes or listen with more than our ears reveal only…a gardener, a stranger coming down the road behind us, a meal like any other meal. But if we look with our hearts, if we listen with all our being and imagination… what we may see is Jesus himself.” – Frederick Buechner
THOUGHTS ON FAITH AND DOUBT:
Faith isn't believing without proof – it's trusting without reservation. --William Sloane Coffin
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." --Hebrews 11:1
For those with faith, no explanation is necessary. For those without, no explanation is possible. –ThomasAquinas
Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. --Paul Tillich
Belief is reassuring. People who live in the world of belief feel safe. On the contrary, faith is forever placing us on the razor's edge. --Jacques Ellul
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. -- Rainer Maria Rilke
The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid. --G.K. Chesterton
I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly. -Madeleine L'Engle
Faith which does not doubt is dead faith. —Miguel de Unamuno
It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand. --Madeleine L'Engle
AdoroTe With my heart I worship,
O hidden Deity,
Thou that dost hide thyself
Beneath these images
In full reality…
I cannot touch, I cannot taste, I cannot see;
All sense is cheated of Thee, but the ear.
The Son of God hath spoken: I believe:
For naught hath truth beyond the world I hear.
Upon the cross Thy Deity was hid,
And here is hidden Thy humanity;
Yet here I do acknowledge both and cry,
As the thief cried to Thee on Calvary.
I do not gaze, like Thomas, on Thy wounds,
But I confess Thee God.
Give me a stronger faith, a surer hope,
More love to Thee, my Lord.
O Thou memorial of the dying Lord,
O living Bread that givest life to men,
Make strong my soul that it may live by Thee,
And for all sweetness turn to Thee again…
The veil is on Thy face: I cannot see.
I cry to Thee for grace,
That that may come to pass for which I thirst,
That I may see Thee with They face unveiled,
And in that vision rest.
-- Attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas
ON DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY:
On February 22, 1031, the young Polish nun, Sister Faustina Kowalska, saw a vision of Jesus, with rays of mercy streaming from the area of his heart. He told her to have an image painted to represent this vision, and to sign it, “Jesus, I trust in you!” Calling her the Apostle and Secretary of his mercy, he ordered her to begin writing a diary, so others would learn to trust in him.
In a series of revelations, he taught her that mercy is unlimited and available to even the greatest sinners, and he revealed special ways for people to respond to his mercy. Jesus requested that the Sunday after Easter – this Sunday – be officially established in the Church as the Feast of Mercy: “… It is my desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter… I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners… On that day, the very depths of my tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of my mercy.”
In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II surprised many when he established Divine Mercy Sunday throughout the Universal Church during the canonization of Sr. Faustina – now St. Faustina.
About the image of the Divine Mercy, with the red and white rays radiating from his heart, Jesus said, “I want the image to be solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter, and I want it to be venerated publicly so that every soul may know about it.” Our Lord’s promise to grant complete forgiveness of sins and punishment on the Feast of Mercy is recorded three times in the Diary: “I want to grant a complete pardon to the souls that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion on the Feast of my Mercy… Whoever approaches the fountain of Life on this day will be granted complete forgiveness of sins and punishment… The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion will obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment…”
But going to Confession and Communion is not the only way we should prepare for this Feast. We are also called to be merciful: “Yes, the first Sunday after Easter is the Feast of Mercy, but there must also be acts of mercy… I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from this.” ---reprinted from Our Lady’s Monthly Messenger
To observe the Feast of Mercy:
Pray with great confidence, with confidence based upon the goodness and infinite generosity of God and upon the promises of Jesus Christ. God is a spring of living water which flows unceasingly into the hearts of those who pray.
- St. Louis de Montfort
Reflection for April 27, 2014: On the Faith of “Doubting” Thomas
If Thomas Didymus – Thomas the Twin (the guy we call Doubting Thomas) is anybody’s twin, he’s mine. I have seldom found faith to be an easy, automatic thing. Not that I’ve ever doubted the existence of God – I can’t imagine doubting God’s existence -- I just have a lot of questions about exactly what God is up to, here on earth. Especially in the wake of the tragedies of life – the earthquakes and fires and mudslides and floods, the epidemics and famines and droughts and diseases, the shootings, the stabbings, the beatings, the drownings, and the constant rumbling threat of war and violence. Our world is so riddled with pain, so broken and battered and lonesome and sad – and yet at the same time it is so unutterably beautiful, so varied and wondrous, that the combination of the two extremes can leave a person shaken and spinning inside. That’s why I love the Psalms; those ancient verses so clearly express what you might call the whole bipolar disorder of humanity, from “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” to “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad!” Which pretty much covers my spiritual mood swings as well.
It’s a human trait to want reassurance; otherwise, Hallmark Cards and flower arrangers would have gone broke years ago. We are always asking each other, whether or not we say it out loud: Do you really love me? I mean, really? And the more insecure or unworthy we feel, the more the question nags at us. So of course we’re going to question God, especially during those rare painful doubting moments when we’re not exactly sure what we really believe. I’ve been known to lie awake in the dark fierce hours in the middle of the night, tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling, not really all that different from the lovesick girl I was some decades ago – yanking out my own spiritual petals in search of some kind of answer, thinking of God and anxiously muttering He loves me, he loves me not! The greater God’s love appears, the harder it is to accept. We talk about things being “too good to be true.” Well, unconditional love seems way too good to be true.
No wonder the disciples doubted the Resurrection at first. In some accounts, when the women return from the tomb, talking about angels and such, the guys just refuse to believe it. They roll their eyes and say, “Whatever,” and make eloquent faces at each other whenever they think the women aren’t looking, no doubting muttering (in Aramaic, of course) something about “those crazy dames and their wacky ideas.” I often think that it’s unfair that we remember Thomas as the “doubting” disciple, when not one of the disciples didn’t have panicky moments of fear and doubt and outright denial. Look at how they behaved at the Crucifixion.
And even now, as we hear in today’s reading, , you can see that their faith still needs reinforcement -- just hours after the Resurrection. After just a day or two without Jesus, the disciples are already beginning to doubt again. This is made clear in almost all of the post-Resurrection accounts: No one, at first, quite believes he’s seeing Jesus – even if they just saw him a few days ago. Everybody needs a bit m ore reassurance; we forget so soon. And this is not a criticism of the disciples; it’s an acknowledgement that they were as human as we are. Because doubt is not the enemy of faith, it is its lifelong companion – the sometimes annoying younger sibling who tugs at the hem of faith’s garments and demands, “Are we there yet? I’m tired. I think we’re lost. What’s going on? Where are we???” A faith that can’t handle challenge is no faith at all.
The disciples’ experience is also a reminder that faith is a lifelong journey: It is not a stagnant once-in-a-lifetime experience, something where we can proudly proclaim, “I’ve been born again, so I never have to worry again about anything.” Like any journey, it includes good days and bad days – uphill struggles and downhill ease, sunny days and stormy nights. And we can’t possibly do it without help. That’s why we need, sometimes, to simply admit we’re scared and lost, and then to ask Christ to come to us, the way Thomas did, and give us a sign. We’re not going to see, as Thomas did, the nail marks in Christ’s body. But we are given the chance to touch the Lord through the Eucharist. Why do you think we talk so much about prayer and receiving the sacraments? It’s not because God needs ourattention; it’s because we need to be reminded to pay attention, to put ourselves into a place where we are aware of the presence of God.
We often talk about faith as a light, but we forget that any light needs tending, if it’s going to keep on burning. It’s not the fire’s fault if it goes out because you forgot to keep adding wood. And it’s not God’s fault if we quit praying or receiving the Eucharist and begin to find ourselves drifting away from our faith. The word “viaticum,” used for the Eucharist, means “bread for the journey,” after all. If we refuse to eat, we shouldn’t be shocked if we start to get hungry.
Faith and doubt are at the core of today’s extraordinary reading. The disciples are hidden away in their “safe house,” the doors locked and the curtains down -- a chair most likely jammed under the doorknob to keep the centurions out. And suddenly Jesus appears in the midst of them, smiling at them and asking for something to eat. Well, yeah, no matter how frightened or skeptical I was, I’d believe too, if I were present and saw it. But what if I’d been like Thomas? What if I’d stepped outside to get a newspaper or a cup of coffee, and come back in a couple of hours to find everybody else had gone completely nuts, all my old buddies laughing and weeping and ranting about seeing a guy that I knew for a fact was dead? I’d think they were more than a few beads short of a rosary, that’s what I’d think.
Maybe if Thomas had been more trusting, maybe if he’d paused and peered more closely at his old friends’ faces – maybe then he would have realized that something extraordinary had happened. But you know how it is when your heart is broken. Thomas was still locked inside the dark room of his grief, the curtains of his heart closed tight to keep out the brightness of the world; he couldn’t see anything past his own blinding tears. And so he reacted with terrible fury; he told his buddies, “You guys have lost it!” and then threw off his coat and banged his way into the bedroom and slammed the door.
And then he burst into bitter tears, and railed at God for abandoning him.
They call Missouri the “show me” state. I like to think of Thomas as the “show me” disciple. “Unless I see it, I won’t believe it,” he declared furiously – and that was that.
Until, of course, Jesus came back and appeared to Thomas as well, in all his shining, beloved, glorious reality. And all Thomas could do was fall to the ground and wrap his shaking arms around Jesus’ knees, sobbing out his wonder in a flood of tears and hysterical laughter. All he could say was the only thing you can say at a moment like that, and that was exactly what any of us would have said, had we been there: “My Lord and My God!” These words, from this legendary doubter, are the first and clearest verbal confession from an apostle that Jesus himself is God. And they burst out of Thomas in a flood of joy and wonder. Because what else is there to say, when you meet the Risen Lord? What else is there to do, but fall on your knees and worship?
And this is how we still meet Christ: Through his wounds – and through ours as well. We recognize him in the breaking of the bread, not in the perfect, untouched loaf just out of the oven. God cracks us open like so many eggs, and it is always a dreadful, harrowing process – and yet until we are broken open, we can’t seem to really see, or feel, God’s presence in our lives. We are all crouched like Thomas behind the doors of our own broken hearts, afraid to believe that something too good to be true can really be true – and can transform our lives. And then Jesus walks through the door and stands before us, smiling and saying: “Here I am!” And then he says to us all, as he said to Thomas: “Peace be with you.”
As we reach out to touch Christ’s wounds, he enters us through our wounds as well – bringing grace and sweet forgiveness, bringing the life everlasting. Inside the locked room of our hearts, Jesus appears unexpectedly, smiling and saying always, “Peace be with you!” But because we are the way we are, he often has to visit us more than once, because it’s so easy for us to retreat and barricade ourselves inside those locked inner rooms. And that is why we need to receive the Eucharist as often as we can. Our lives are like a complicated dance in which we partner with doubt as well as faith, but the one who conducts the dance and leads the music is the God who made us. And when he come to us -- as he tends to do when we least expect him and need him the most -- all we can do in response is what Thomas did: kneel, and weep, and laugh, and cry out in joy: “My Lord and my God!” In Jesus’ name. – Diane Sylvain