Divine Mercy Sunday, April 27, 2014
Fr. Joseph Eddy, O. de M.
This is a very special Sunday. First, it is Divine Mercy Sunday or the day to glorify the Mercy of God. But, also, today in Rome two men, Blessed John XXIII and Blessed John Paul II, will be canonized as Saints in the Church. It seems like only yesterday in 2005 on Divine Mercy Sunday that Pope John Paul II died. For most of us, he was the man we identified most with the Church and the papacy. This is because he served as Holy Father for almost 27 years and traveled all over the globe. Blessed John Paul II will forever be connected to the feast of Divine Mercy since he established it, he died on it, and he is now canonized on it. But, the connections don’t stop there.
Blessed John Paul II was deeply moved by this devotion, which was based on the private revelations and visions of a Polish religious sister, St Faustina. He lived during her lifetime and experienced the power of the message God gave her to spread.
Suffering IS Real
It can be difficult to speak of the topic of the Lord’s Divine Mercy. God’s Mercy is endless, but it also must be acknowledged that the Lord allows suffering and other forms of evil to happen in the world because of man’s sinfulness. To see this we only need to look at the last century which included two World Wars, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, legalized abortion, and most recently the attacks of 9/11. Most of us, if we are honest, have questioned why the all-good God would permit such sufferings? Where is His Divine Mercy in such tragedies?
The answer is found in the Gospel and especially in today’s passage. Jesus appears to his disciples saying, “Peace be with you!” As He does this we are told that He shows them His hands and His side. Jesus has just walked through a wall and is standing before the terrified disciples with the appearance of a ghost. The veil to the Lord’s divinity is fully lifted, but He draws their attention to His Sacred Wounds. There in His side and hands are the remnants of the terrible evil that the Son of God endured. Yet, now things are different. This is not the dying Christ, but the Glorified Body. These wounds are no longer signs of shame, but trophies of His victory over evil.
Good or Evil, Our Choice to Make
As Jesus holds these Sacred Wounds up to the disciples, He is showing them tangibly the limit that God places on evil. The greatest of evil was done, not to us, but to Jesus Christ who is God and thus totally innocent. But, by this one sacrifice for all, God has forever placed a limit on evil. When Christ rose from the dead this marked the limit of suffering, death, and evil. Yes, Sin and the devil can cause evil to happen in the world, but only to a degree. This degree is permitted so that we can freely chose God; Choose good over evil, live over death. In our free will, we can choose to respond to Divine Mercy or not. Seeking God’s mercy is done when we freely accept the Lord’s forgiveness, love, and strength through the Sacraments of His Body the Church. First and foremost, this is given in Confession and the Holy Eucharist. God so loves us that he wants us to choose for ourselves good over evil.
This Sunday is a special time to choose to glorify the Divine Mercy. To implore the Lord: “for the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!” This day we bring ourselves and our loved ones to the Font of Mercy. We come to Jesus’ side, pierced by the soldier’s lance, from which flows a fountain of Mercy for us all. St. Thomas placed his hand into Jesus’ side. We bring to the Sacred Heart all of those we know who are in need of God’s boundless mercy. First, we begin with ourselves. We have all sinned and contributed to the evil and suffering in the world. Thanks to the Divine Mercy, Jesus places a limit on how far this evil can go. He forgives. God spares us from countless evils and showers us with graces we do not deserve.
So as we give thanks for the life of two holy popes, let us recognize that all the Saints are products of God’s Divine Mercy. They are not holy because of anything they did or supernatural qualities they had. The Saints are holy because they had the humility and courage to come to the Font of Mercy. To place themselves under the blood and water which flowed from Jesus pierced side. It was God who cleansed them of their sins and enabled them to achieve great heights of holiness. Let us all come to His Side and receive the new life won for us by God’s Divine Mercy.