Church of the Nativity

Homily for KDTH on Second Sunday of Easter or Divine Mercy Sunday 4/19/2020 (Theme: Mercy, unconditional love, peace through the forgiveness of our sins)

Hey there, it’s Fr. Andy at Nativity and I’m going to offer you my Sunday homily.  I really only focus on the Gospel, which is John chapter 20 verse 19 thru 31, so hopefully you have already read that. 

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday.  It brings to completion the Easter Octave, the eight days of our Easter Celebration, with a pointed message from the Resurrected Jesus about peace and forgiveness. We have all sinned, but Jesus forgives us and wants us to have peace. 

In the Gospel, we hear of the disciples locking themselves into a room for fear of the Jews, but I believe there was a lot more fear than just that of the Jews.  It was Easter Sunday and they had just learned that Jesus had risen from the tomb.  

Where was He at?  Was He truly alive as some of the women had claimed?  If so, was He mad at them all for abandoning Him at the cross?  Would He ever forgive them?

They were gripped by fear, and they were hiding like scared children.  So Jesus enters the locked room and they had to be frightened by His sudden arrival, so the first thing he says to them is “Peace be with you” and He shows them His hands and His side to prove it was really Him and that He is alive.

He knows their hearts are still full of fear from what they’ve done, so He says it a second time, “Peace be with you,” as a way to let them know that He forgives them.  He is showing them that He isn’t going to scold them, He isn’t going to chastise or berate them for abandoning Him, He knows their hearts and what they did and He forgives them anyway and wants them all to be at peace now.

This is a great act of mercy, divine mercy.  My favorite definition for the word mercy is “undeserved love.”  These disciples didn’t do anything to deserve Jesus’ love, in fact they had done a lot to not deserve it.  We don’t do anything either, but God just loves us anyway.

It’s like a parent with a new child.  For example, my sister was terribly sick in each of her three pregnancies, always nauseous, if she wasn’t taking medicine she would be throwing up all of the time.  

So, with her last child, she basically struggled for nine months, then she was in labor for 8 and a half hours, in excruciating pain for at least part of it I imagine, and then this baby girl appears.

If anything, mother should be mad at baby, the baby has done nothing but cause her suffering. But it is the complete opposite; mom, and dad for that matter, are overjoyed, they love this baby so much, even though that little baby has done nothing to deserve it, nothing to earn their love. Unconditional, unearned, undeserved.

Undeserved love.  Mercy. That is the way God loves us too, but we forget that because we live in a world that always wants to put conditions on love.  I’ll love you if… I’ll love you when… But God says to us, I’ll love you no matter what!  

That is Divine Love, Divine Mercy, and that is what today is all about. 

Back to our Gospel.  This is the first time Jesus has appeared to the disciples after His Resurrection, and after He has tried to put their hearts at peace, He says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he 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.”

This is amazing to me, Jesus takes the first opportunity with His disciples to send them out on mission to forgive the sins of others, just like He has forgiven them, Jesus sends them forth to offer God’s forgiveness and mercy to the whole world.

This passage is our primary scriptural basis for the sacrament of reconciliation, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

How can our sins be retained unless they are told to someone else?  When I finally understood this, I gained a whole new appreciation for going to confession with a priest and actually hearing the words of absolution, knowing without a doubt I was forgiven for my sins.  

Like the disciples, priests are also sinful men, but we have been given the responsibility to hear sins and forgive them just as those first disciples were given.

Jesus was basically saying to them in that moment, I know you have sinned, you know you have sinned, but I forgive you, and you need to forgive yourself. Be at peace and go out to the world and forgive others sins with the power of the Holy Spirit that I just breathed into you, giving them my divine mercy.

It’s amazing to me, it’s a beautiful gift we have been given, to receive God’s loving mercy and forgiveness.  Like a parent’s love, we can often take it for granted, and sometimes we can even doubt that it still exists.  

Sometimes seeing is believing, like Doubting Thomas needed, sometimes we need reminders of God’s love and forgiveness to overcome our fear and our doubt.

That is what today’s feast of divine mercy is all about, that great reminder that even has a visual aspect.  It’s actually a fairly new feast, it was started as a result of a private revelation to Sr. Faustina in the early 1900’s in Poland, but it was approved by the Church and Pope John Paul II established this feast day.

Jesus appeared to Sr. Faustina and directed her to have an image of him painted to show to the world as a reminder of his love and mercy which flowed from his pierced heart as blood and water.  In the image you can see the red and white rays flowing from Jesus’ heart symbolizing the love and mercy that He wants to give to the whole world.  

Then, on the bottom of the image, Jesus directed Sr. Faustina to add this small prayer that is worthy of our repeating every day, “Jesus, I Trust in You.”  There are a bunch of little cards on the pamphlet tables here at Nativity as there are at most Catholic Churches, as well as more info about the prayers.

In addition to this image, she kept a meticulous diary which described the visions and messages she received from Jesus.  I’d like to read to you just one quote from the Diary of Sr. Faustina:

“I desire trust from my creatures. Encourage souls to place great trust in my fathomless mercy. Let the weak, sinful soul have no fear to approach me, for even if it had more sins than there are grains of sand in the world, all would be drowned in the unmeasurable depths of my mercy.”

Just like He did with Sr. Faustina, Jesus sent his disciples out on mission to teach people of His love and forgiveness, touching the lives of people and telling them, “Do not be afraid.”  Jesus wants us to trust in His divine mercy for us. 

Divine Mercy, like the sacrament of reconciliation, is a great gift to us, but like a parent giving a gift to a child, the gift has to be received. It is one thing to know someone has bought you the gift you want, it is another when you actually receive it... Do not be afraid, trust in Jesus and receive the gift of His Divine Mercy. 

Jesus, I trust in you. May peace be with you on this Divine Mercy Sunday.

So hopefully you were edified by that.  I didn’t get into it too much because confession isn’t really available right now, but thinking through this passage as it relates to our sacrament of reconciliation really changed my life. Hardly any other Christian denominations practice this sacrament, but it is so clear to me here that it made me re-examine everything else about the faith thirteen years ago, and here I am today.  Thanks for reading and may Almighty God Bless you.

Reading 1 ACTS 2:42-47