🙏 SUNDAY INSIGHT - THE 2ND SUNDAY OF EASTER 🙏

First Reading - Acts 2:42-47

Second Reading - 1 Peter 1:3-9

Gospel - 1 John 5:1-6 

During Babe Ruth’s baseball career, he drifted away from his Faith. One night he was very ill in a New York hospital, and a friend suggested he makes his peace with God. As a result, Babe Ruth asked to see a priest. After celebrating the sacrament of Reconciliation, Babe Ruth wrote:

“As I lay in bed that evening, I thought to myself – what a comfortable feeling to be free from fear and worries. I could simply turn them over to God.” — Wow! What an expression of Trust in God’s Love and Mercy.

The readings for this Sunday show us our need for God’s Divine Mercy, which is offered to us through the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the forgiveness of our sins, and through each celebration of the Sacraments (all instituted to sanctify us), when we receive them in trusting Faith.

The first reading tells us how the early Church grew every day because of the acts of mercy — sharing, sacrificial agápe love — practiced by the early Christians. 

In the second reading, St. Peter glorifies God, the Father of Jesus Christ, for showing us His mercy by granting His Son Jesus Resurrection from the dead and a glorious Ascension into Heaven, thus giving us the assurance of our own resurrection.

Today’s Gospel vividly reminds us of how Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a sacrament of Divine Mercy. The risen Lord gave his Apostles the power to forgive sins with the words, “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain, they are retained” (Jn 20:19-23). Presenting the doubting Thomas’ famous profession of Faith, “My Lord and my God,” the Gospel illustrates how Jesus showed his mercy to the doubting apostle and emphasizes the importance of Faith for everyone.

Dear friends, we need to accept God’s invitation to celebrate and practice mercy in our Christian lives: One way the Church celebrates God’s mercy throughout the year is through the Holy Mass and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Finding time for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is another good way to receive and give thanks for Divine Mercy. But it is mainly through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy that we practice in our daily lives the Mercy we have already received and become eligible for God’s merciful judgment.

Let us ask God for the Faith that culminates in self-surrender to God and leads us to serve those we encounter with agape love. Living Faith enables us to see the risen Lord in everyone and gives us the willingness to render to each other our loving service. The Spiritual Fathers prescribe the following traditional means to grow in the living, dynamic Faith of St. Thomas the Apostle: a) First, we must come to know Jesus personally and intimately by our daily and meditative reading of the Bible. b) Next, we must strengthen our Faith through our personal and communal prayer. c) Third, we must share in the Divine Life of Jesus by frequenting the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist. St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) presents it this way: “If we pray, we will believe; if we believe, we will love; if we love, we will serve. Only then we put our love of God into action.”