🙏 SUNDAY INSIGHTS - DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY 🙏

First Reading - Acts 2:42-47 

Second Reading - 1 Peter 1:3-9 

Gospel - John 20:19-31

One of the most moving stories came to us on October 6, 2006, when an armed man entered an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He chased out the little boys and lined up the 10 little girls in front of the blackboard. He shot all of them and then killed himself. Five of the girls died. After the medics and police left, the families of the fallen came and carried their slain children home. They removed their bloody clothes and washed the bodies. They sat for a time and mourned their beloved children. After a while they walked to the home of the man who killed their children. They told his widow they forgave her husband for what he had done, and they consoled her for the loss of her spouse. They buried their anger before they buried their children. — Amish Christians teach us that forgiveness is central. They believe in a real sense that God’s forgiveness of themselves depends on their extending forgiveness to other people. That’s what the mercy of God is all about. That mercy is why we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. The readings for this Sunday are about God’s mercy, the necessity for trusting faith, and our need to witness God's mercy. 

The passage of the first reading is the summary of the life of the First Christian Community which came about as the experience of the risen Lord. It will not be wrong to say that the life of the community was lived in the risen Lord and sustained by the Holy Spirit. It is a picture of peace, generosity and devotion, summed up in grateful praise of God. Luke is showing us the quality of a community where the Spirit of God is given free play; he is giving us an ideal to strive for. It is a community to which anyone would wish to belong, a community where love prevails, where each member is attentive to the needs of others. It is not surprising that their number was constantly on the increase. The life of the first community sets some guidelines for our Christian life and invites us to emulate them: 

1. The life of faithfulness to the teachings of Jesus handed down by the apostles

2. The life of commitment to the brotherhood or the Christian community.

3. The life of prayer expressed through our regular participation in the Holy Eucharist and personal and community prayer.

The second reading gives us a summary of our Christian faith unfolded in the pascal mystery. The passage highlights that the paschal mystery of Jesus has a great impact on every individual since it restores our relationship with the Father and reinstates us as His sons and daughters. The passage underlines that the resurrection of Jesus is the visible sign that Father has displayed to ascertain our hope in faith the promise of eternal life. The main emphasis of the second reading lies on underscoring the mercy of the Father. It's out of His mercy, Father initiates the economy of salvation in Jesus and accomplishes it in Him. Therefore, we should have faith in God in every situation as long as we are on this earth because faith in Jesus is the way that leads to receive mercy in God.

Today’s Gospel passage can be divided into two parts; the first part speaks about how Jesus entrusted to his apostles his mission of preaching the “Good News” of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness, and salvation and the second part about the profession of faith of Thomas. 

The first portion of the reading teaches us that Jesus uses the Church as the earthly means of continuing His mission. It also teaches us that the Church needs Jesus as its source of power and authority, and that it becomes Christ’s true messenger only when it perfectly loves and obeys Him. The Risen Lord gives the apostles the authority to forgive sins in His Name. He gives the apostles the power of imparting God’s mercy to the sinner, the gift of forgiving sins from God’s treasury of mercy, in both the Sacrament of Baptism and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In the liturgy, the Church has proclaimed the mercy of God for centuries through the Word of God and the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. The Gospel text also reminds us that the clearest way of expressing our belief in the presence of the Risen Jesus among us is through our own forgiveness of others. We can’t form a lasting Christian community without such forgiveness. Unless we forgive others, our celebration of the Eucharist is just an exercise in liturgical rubrics.

In the second part, Thomas, the “doubting” apostle, makes the great profession of faith, “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28). Thomas confesses Jesus in the very words (“My Lord and my God”) used by the Psalmist for Yahweh. According to Raymond Brown, Thomas’ profession of Faith is the ultimate Christological proclamation of the fourth gospel. “My Lord (Kyrios) and my God (Theos)” revealed the late first century Church’s realization that Jesus was equal to, and One with, the Eternal Creator of the universe and of all humankind. Here, the most outrageous doubter of the Resurrection of Jesus utters the greatest confession of belief in the Lord Who rose from the dead. This declaration by the “doubting” Thomas in today’s Gospel is very significant for two reasons. 1) It is the foundation of our Christian Faith. Our Faith is based on the Divinity of Jesus as proved by His miracles, especially by the supreme miracle of His Resurrection from the dead. Thomas’ profession of Faith is the strongest evidence we have of the Resurrection of Jesus. 2) Thomas’ Faith culminated in his self-surrender to Jesus, his heroic missionary expedition to India around A.D. 52, his fearless preaching, and the powerful testimony given by his martyrdom around A.D. 72. 

Dear friends, the readings of today present an apt worldview of looking at the Easter celebration. The readings emphasize that it's God's mercy that rolls out in sacrificial love of Jesus so that we all may have the joy of eternal life. The second reading describes that our Heavenly Father pours out His mercy through Jesus and we need to respond to it through our firm faith in every circumstance. The gospel passage reminds us that our faith in the risen Christ is real. Thomas struggled in his faith in the risen Lord but when he encountered the risen Lord Himself. He submitted to him. However, Jesus calls those who believe in Him without seeing Him: "Blessed". We share in the life of blessedness because we believe in Jesus although we have not seen Him with our naked eyes. Gospel underscores that our faith in Jesus is real and the second reading points to the fact that our faith in Jesus is promising: It promises eternal life.

The gospel passage also hints at the second aspect of faith that is witness or evangelization. Jesus commissions his disciples to give witness of their faith to all people. The first reading is a beautiful example of 'witness'. The witness or evangelization that entails love, joy, peace, unity, acceptance, forgiveness and mercy. We are the witnesses of Christ, therefore, let our life and action become first expression of our faith.

Let's pray that as we have received the gift of God's mercy in our faith, may we be able to live it in our lives as witnesses to it.