Homily
Divine Mercy Sunday
1 May 2011
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
+ Beatification of John Paul II, Pope
Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his mercy endures forever.
John Paul II gave us the 2nd Sunday of Easter to be Divine Mercy Sunday. As we remember well on this day when the church confirms his sanctity through his beatification, John Paul desired to witness to the very end of his life his confidence in God's mercy, allowing millions to keep vigil with him until his death in 2005 on the eve of this great feast of divine mercy that he gave us.
By 2030 it is projected that there will be as many agnostics in the United States as Catholics. The proclamation of the Resurrection fails to win every heart and mind today, far from it. When I hear the story of the doubting Thomas, it first occurs to me that now is the time to get defensive, and to make a vigorous apologetic for the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus, using Thomas as an example of the rampant skepticism and individualism that plagues modern man.Yet John Paul II forever took this 2nd Sunday of Easter in a different direction. Meditating on the sacred heart of Jesus, he realized that Jesus never became defensive. He responded to doubt with greater trust in people's faith, to sin with greater mercy. Living in the modern age which can easily find more and more reasons to doubt the Resurrection, John Paul II fought back not simply with better arguments, but with a better proclamation of the Lord's mercy that goes beyond human logic and control. John Paul II knew that the truth of the Resurrection could only flourish if man is capable of meditating on a mercy that is man's origin, his constant calling, and his perfection in heaven.
Indeed, it is our poverty in meditating upon God's mercy, and in allowing God's oceans of mercy to wash over us and make us new, that makes the Easter proclamation of the truth of Jesus' Resurrection limp, and be so easily ignored. Archbishop Emeritus Keleher told his priests constantly, that no matter how much you tell people God loves them, they still don't believe it, so you can never stop telling them that God's mercy endures forever. So too, John Paul II has give us this feast of Divine Mercy, which is key to the Easter proclamation of the Church to the world.
We have to escape the poverty of calculating the minimum amount of God's mercy we need to bail us out of jail and to squeak into heaven. Thinking this way is why Catholics love Lent and are lost during Easter. We think of Lent as work and Easter as vacation, when in reality Lent is merely a warm-up for the great work of Easter, when oceans of God's mercy are unleashed through the Paschal mystery upon the world for its redemption, and you and I are personally sent out to be witnesses of a divine mercy that is redeeming the world beautifully from the inside out, beginning with our own hearts.
We are all guilty of minimizing the effects of the divine mercy. God's mercy does bail us out, to be sure, but we must know mercy to be God's deepest attribute, the best definition of who God really is, and what he wanted to reveal about himself through the gift of Jesus. St. Thomas Aquinas steers us away from superficiality by saying that 'mercy consists in bringing a thing out of non-being into being.' When we think of mercy then, we should think of big things. Not just bailout money, but the creating of everything from nothing at the beginning, and the redemption of everything right now beginning from the nothingness of the cross. We Christians rejoice that we are awash in an ocean of mercy that has revealed itself the conquerer of sin and death, and we live a life right now that is no longer measured horizontally by a clock, but vertically by the depth of God's love for us.
The Church's proclamation of the truth of the Resurrection is built on a rock-solid foundation, and it is not going away. Yet when when modern man is convinced that he can find more reasons to doubt than to have faith, John Paul II proposed not just more arguing, but reminded us that the Church must wash herself anew in the ocean of divine mercy. For in the wounds of Jesus are the best answers for those who might doubt him. A question remains to be answered by anyone who might meet Jesus Christ: who can say no to this man who responds to doubt by allowing himself to be wounded and doubted all the more?
God will always allow himself to be doubted, for in his divine mercy he has freely chosen to always trust us more and to love us more. We even hear it said that it is absurd to believe in a God who would allow anyone, but especially his own Son, to be tortured. Yet what kind of a project is it to disbelieve God only because we cannot reduce him to our own expectations and judgments? If we had recourse to a divine mercy that only met a standard agreed upon from below, how could we ever hope in a more profound life that eye has not seen, or ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned upon the mind of man, what God has in store for those who love him? Let us instead praise God who thankfully surpasses our understanding, for if we only worshipped a God whom we could reduce to our own expecations, we would be doomed to worshipping ourselves.
Let us proclaim today with our late Holy Father, on the glorious day of his beatification, that the work of divine mercy in all its fullness is an Easter mystery, and belongs forever to the Easter proclamation of our Church! May we begin to know the divine mercy, and its power to recreate the world, as John Paul II knew this divine mercy. Let us rejoice that this divine mercy redeems the hearts and minds of man today, and has given us the holiness of John Paul II to inspire us. Blessed John Paul II, pray for us who now have recourse to thee, as the newest blessed of our Church!
With Blessed John Paul II, let us give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! For his mercy endures forever! Amen. Alleluia!
No comments:
Post a Comment