Divine Mercy
Sunday
“In today's Gospel… the Lord breathes upon his disciples. He grants them his Spirit — the Holy Spirit: "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven...".
The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the power of forgiveness. He is the power of Divine Mercy. He makes it possible to start all over again — ever anew. The friendship of Jesus Christ is the friendship of the One who makes us people who forgive, the One who also forgives us, raises us ceaselessly from our weakness and in this very way educates us, instils in us an awareness of the inner duty of love, of the duty to respond with our faithfulness to his trust.
In the Gospel passage for today we also heard the story of the Apostle Thomas' encounter with the Risen Lord: the Apostle is permitted to touch his wounds and thereby recognizes him — over and above the human identity of Jesus of Nazareth, Thomas recognizes him in his true and deepest identity: "My Lord and my God!" (Jn 20:28).
The Lord took his wounds with him to eternity. He is a wounded God; he let himself be injured through his love for us. His wounds are a sign for us that he understands and allows himself to be wounded out of love for us.
These wounds of his: how tangible they are to us in the history of our time! Indeed, time and again he allows himself to be wounded for our sake. What certainty of his mercy, what consolation do his wounds mean for us! And what security they give us regarding his identity: "My Lord and my God!". And what a duty they are for us, the duty to allow ourselves in turn to be wounded for him!”
From the
homily of Pope Benedict XVI, Easter Sunday, April 15, 2007
Divine
Mercy Sunday
"... Jesus came and stood among them, and
said, “Peace be with you!” and he showed them his hands and his side… he showed
them his wounds. And in this way they realized that it was not an
apparition: it was truly him, the Lord, and they were filled with joy.
On the eighth
day Jesus came once again… and showed his wounds to Thomas, so that he could
touch them… in order to believe and thus become himself a witness to the
Resurrection.
To us also, on
this Sunday which Saint John Paul II wished to dedicate to Divine Mercy, the
Lord shows us, through the Gospel, his wounds. They are wounds of mercy.
It is true: the wounds of Jesus are wounds of mercy.
Jesus invites
us to behold these wounds, to touch them as Thomas did, to heal our lack of belief.
Above all, he invites us to enter into the mystery of these wounds… the mystery
of his merciful love.
Through these
wounds, as in a light-filled opening, we can see the entire mystery of Christ
and of God… the whole history of salvation… All of this we can see in the
wounds of Jesus, crucified and risen…
Faced with the
tragic events of human history we can feel crushed at times, asking ourselves,
“Why?”. Humanity’s evil can appear in the world like an abyss, a great
void: empty of love, empty of goodness, empty of life… how can we fill this
abyss? For us it is impossible; only God can fill this emptiness that
evil brings to our hearts and to human history. It is Jesus, God made
man, who died on the Cross and who fills the abyss of sin with the depth of his
mercy…
Keeping our
gaze on the wounds of the Risen Jesus, we can sing with the Church: “His love
endures forever” (Ps 117:2); eternal is his mercy. And with these
words… let us go forth along the paths of history, led by the hand of our Lord
and Saviour, our life and our hope.
From the Homily of Pope Francis, April 12, 2015
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