Homily for the Feast of Divine Mercy, 2022

Divine Mercy: We Get What Jesus Deserves    

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

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

St. Bridget Catholic Church, Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, April 24, 2022

Today is the Feast of Divine Mercy. One great manifestation of Divine Mercy is the forgiveness of sin. We know we are sinners in need of God’s mercy. Like Peter and his fellow Apostles, we have also betrayed the Lord. Our betrayal of him happens often in both words or deeds. As a result, we are doomed and marked for punishment. But here now is the greatest good news— Divine Mercy has taken our punishment away. Through Jesus of Nazareth, God has forgiven and justified us. Jesus has exchanged places with us: we get what he deserves, and he gets what we deserve. It is this great exchange, his very life for ours that we celebrate particularly today. 

Our today’s beautiful Gospel taken from John 20:19-31 lays this truth clearly. Hiding 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, by 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. He may have returned to rebuke and punish them, to take his pound of flesh. But what does Jesus do and say? 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. So, 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 and moral 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! Not excoriation! Not rebuke! Not punishment! If you are watching a Hollywood movie of a poor and just man who was betrayed, denied, and abandoned by everyone at the moment of truth, later he was 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? I guess you would. As for Jesus, what he does after showing his wounds is astonishingly breathtaking. He utters the word of healing and mercy— Shalom! Peace! 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 greeting his Apostles  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, his simple answer was, “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, I enjoin you to 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.