Homily for Divine Mercy Sunday

Dear Fellow Pilgrims:
    
Once the excited glow of Easter morn has faded, every Christian community has to confront the challenge of believing often in the face of what appear to be insurmountable odds. I suspect this awareness fueled the words of Peter to his fellow believers: “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 Peter 1, 3) In very graphic terms, the first pope described this “living hope,” founded upon the mystery of the resurrection, as a “new birth.”
    
Today is “Divine Mercy Sunday.” The great proponents of this feast were citizens of Poland who were well aware of what it meant to live in times of great trial and confusion. The “visions” experienced by St. Faustina, much like those of Margaret Mary centuries earlier, spoke of awesome “mercy” that flows from the open heart of the Savior. It is no wonder that the Polish pope, St. John Paul II, exalted the message of these revelations as they provided great hope to a world wherein many seemed to have lost their way.
    
This past week, I took the opportunity to read the conversion story of a brilliant person who was searching for truth amid the challenges of the 1940s. This college student, Avery Dulles, found his way through the study of philosophy. I found these words of his rather compelling: “The man who refuses to face the philosophic problem is like a traveler in the night who will not take the time to decide where he is going because he is in too much of a hurry to be on his way…He becomes a slave to irrational impulses which incline him now this way and that. Eventually he resolves that he will follow the crowd, but he has no way of telling whether they are proceeding to the same destination or whether they know where it is located…Finally he determines to follow the man who speaks the loudest, most emphatic tones…The consequent willingness of men to listen to any voice which spoke with accents of authority has permitted the establishment of unprecedented tyrannies. Man cannot with impunity ignore philosophy.” (Dulles, A. A Testimonial to Grace, pp. 59-60)
   
  The central figure of our gospel today fits the perfect description of one who had been searching for the truth and thought he had found truth until confronted with the cost of truth. We are told that Thomas was also called “Didymus,” which means “twin.” The evangelist John is very clever in as much as he never tells us the identity of Thomas’ twin. Could it be that this is a literary and catechetical technique to remind us that "we" are the “twins” of Thomas?
    
Recall that before Jesus ventured close to danger by going to the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary in Bethany Thomas had professed a willingness to go with him to “die” with him. After the Last Supper, during the “Farewell Discourse,” Jesus reminded the apostles that he was going to “prepare a place” for them and that they knew the way. Thomas replied: “We do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?” To that Jesus proclaimed: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The “way” is more than a “philosophy” or a “code of ethics,” but a person. Identification with this person requires participation in his death in order to experience his resurrection.
    
The death of one we love, no matter how much expected, is devastating. We often go through the necessary motions for the funeral and burial; but, afterwards, we are sometimes filled with a lethargy that easily leads to depression. Thomas, undoubtedly, was left in confusion and disbelief after the horrific death of Jesus. Fear that he, too, might be executed for his connection with Jesus might also have paralyzed him. Rather than huddle with the other followers of Jesus, who likely had similar feelings, Thomas chose to be alone.
    
Most of us these days are spending significant days and hours in isolation from one another; but, are we really alone? The forced separation caused by the health crisis we all experience has, actually, caused many to become closer through the various modern means of communication that exist. We need that “community” whose life was so ideally described in our first reading. It is within the context of a people on the same journey that the apostles experienced the “peace” which is the presence of the Risen Lord. Thomas was late in coming to this realization; but his act of faith is one many of us were taught to utter at the moment of consecration: “My Lord, and my God!”
    
The “peace” of the Risen Lord is not, however, a precious gift that can be grasped. It grows and thrives within us in as much as we, the community of faith, heed the commission given us: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven…” Forgiveness does not ignore the wounds of the past, but liberates us from the burden of resentment and opens the healed heart to the awesome grace and peace of Divine Mercy!
 
Yours in the Risen Lord,
Father Bill Foley