Homily for the Feast of Divine Mercy (Second Sunday of Easter)

Jesus Addresses The Disorder Of The Cross  

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Feast of Divine Mercy (Second Sunday of Easter)

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, April 11, 2021

As a young man, Karol Wojtyla, who later became Pope John Paul II had a great devotion to Sister Faustina Kowalski who died in Krakow in 1938. Sister Faustina was a young Polish nun gifted with extraordinary visions and experiences of the Lord Jesus. In one of the Lord’s visits to her, the Lord asked that a special feast day be devoted to Divine Mercy and be celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. It was on the occasion of the canonization of Sister Faustina on April 30, 2000, that Pope John Paul II designated the Second Sunday of Easter to be the Divine Mercy Sunday. So, today we celebrate the great Feast of Divine Mercy. When we use the word “mercy” what does it mean? Mercy in Latin is Misericordiae, which is a type of compassion. Compassion in Latin is compassioun which means I suffer with. It is a deep, loving identification with people in their suffering. That’s mercy! Mercy is identical to what the Old Testament author refers to “God’s hesed or tender-mercy. Mercy is the characteristic of God for God is love. Mercy is not just one attribute among many, but the very essence and nature of God. The love that exists among the Trinitarian Persons is spilling over into the world. Today’s Psalm captures this so well: Let the house of Israel say, His mercy endures forever. Let the house of Aaron say, His mercy endures forever. Let those who fear the Lord say, His mercy endures forever.

Think of a mother’s love for her children. Could you imagine a mother becoming indifferent to one of her offspring? Yet, Prophet Isaiah says, even if she forgets, God will never forget his own. The greatest manifestation of Divine Mercy is the forgiveness of sin. Our beautiful Gospel of today taken from John 20:19-31 lays this truth clearly. Staying in the Upper Room were the disciples of Jesus who at the moment of truth had denied, betrayed and abandoned their Master. Seized by fear of the Jews and I will add, shame and remorse for what they did, Jesus came and stood in their midst. When they saw him, their fear intensified. He may have come back for some kind of revenge. Instead, he speaks the simple word, Shalom! which means “Peace!” After the greeting of peace, he shows the wounds on his hands and side. Why is the showing of his wounds so important? By showing his wounds, Jesus reminds them and everyone not to forget what we did to him. The Author of life came, and we killed him. The next time you hear people brag and say, “I am okay!” “You are okay!” do not believe them. The wounds of Jesus are signs of our spiritual dysfunction. When the Risen Lord showed his wounds he is asking us not to forget that. After he has shown his wounds, what follows? Not vengeance! If you are watching a movie of a poor man who was betrayed, denied, abandoned by everyone at the moment of truth and was later put to death, and after a few days he rises from dead, would you not expect that he is going to unleash more vengeance on those who betrayed him and put him to death? As for the Risen Lord, what he does after showing his wounds is astonishingly breathtaking. He utters the word of healing and mercy— Shalom! Shalom sums up what God intended for the human race from the very beginning. What sin interrupted is Shalom. What sin disrupted is Shalom. Shalom is wellbeing at every level— physical, spiritual and emotional. Rather than unleash vengeance on those who denied, betrayed and abandoned him, he offers forgiveness and peace. The terrible disorder of the cross, of the crucifixion of Jesus is addressed not through more disorder, not through more violence, not through more aggression, not through an explosion of divine vengeance but through a radiation of divine love and redeeming mercy. 

Now, what does this mean to us? It means that there is no sin that God in principle cannot forgive. There is finally nothing that can separate us from the love of God. St. Paul says in his Letter to the Romans that he is certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither heights nor depths or any other power can separate us from the love of God. How does St. Paul know that? Because we killed God and God returns with forgiving and redeeming love. After speaking Shalom for the second time, Jesus breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” In other words, after offering mercy to his disciples, Jesus commissions and sends them to communicate the same mercy to the world. This is the foundation of the sacrament of Penance, and it has existed in the Church from that very moment till this day as the privilege vehicle of Divine Mercy. When the English philosopher and theologian, G. K. Chesterton was asked why he converted from the Anglican Church (The Church of England) to the Catholic Church, he answered, “To have my sins forgiven.” Chesterton recognized the sacrament of Penance as the privilege vehicle of Divine Mercy. This sacrament is not a burden but the grace of reconciliation, the restoration of divine friendship, and the forgiveness of our sins. I believe that the greatest damage caused by secularism and secularist ideology is the insistence that each of us is okay without God. Going to confession is not a burden but precisely as a privilege expression of Divine Mercy. On this Feast Day of Divine Mercy, feast in Divine Mercy but don’t just feast in it and entertain it intellectually, I strongly recommend you use the sacrament of Penance. For it is the best way to bask in the Divine Mercy.