mercy begets Easter faith

Homily
Divine Mercy Sunday
26/27 April 2014 Year A
Christ the King Catholic Church Topeka
Daily Readings
Audio

Jesus Christ is Risen!  The Lord is truly Risen!  We are to be proclaiming in this incomparable season of Easter with all our heart and mind and strength that the most important victory in history - the victory over sin and death themselves, has been won!  Jesus is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!  There is a real love that is stronger than sin and death - the love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!  Alleluia!  Alleluia! And we are to proclaim this intensely into the world for 50 days - for the entire season of Easter!

But the world oftentimes says 'so what' - or 'prove it' to me!  Even though the historical truth of the Resurrection has been passed down carefully and with great sacrifice, including by the two great popes who will be canonized this weekend John Paul II and John XXIII - still fear and doubt are always available to us.  Even though we proclaim the Resurrection of Jesus as the most real and powerful and true thing out of everything we know to be true, still fear and doubt creep in.  We see fear and doubt on display always on the 2nd Sunday of Easter, as we listen to the story of the disciples locked in fear in the upper room, and the doubt of Thomas.  There is as much or more fear and doubt today as there was then, as agnostics and atheists are the fastest growing segments of the religious landscape.  Fallen away Catholics will one day outnumber practicing Catholics unless we turn things around - fear and doubt are on the increase, which makes our meditation on this Gospel this weekend all the more important.

We can shout into the world that Jesus is truly Risen, and that this truth has been passed down and confirmed by the enormous witness of the Church through the centuries.  We can say that it is too convincing to be ignored.  We can also shout out that anyone who has actually tried being a Christian - anyone who has entered deeply into the suffering and death of Jesus, has found a new and distinctive kind of life on the other side of the cross that we call eternal.  Every Christian should confess personally that our life grows bigger and deeper and younger whenever we dare to follow Jesus' commandment to lose our lives in order to save them.

Still, even with our shouting the Easter proclamation into the world, many people will still ignore and avoid and doubt - because Christianity is not ultimately an argument between those of us who say Jesus is truly Risen, and those who say No He's Not!  Christianity at its core is less of a dogma and more of a dialogue - less an argument and more of a relationship.  And every relationship at its best is a dynamic interplay between faith and love, between trust and mercy.  In today's Gospel we see not just a simple crescendo of last week's Easter proclamation that He is Risen - today we also contemplate what it means to be visited by mercy itself, in the person of the Risen Christ.

For the Christian proclamation of Easter to grow stronger, what happens in today's Gospel is something that must happen personally and intimately, from the inside out, within each Christian.  The Risen Christ with his victory over sin and death comes to convince people not by overwhelming them from the outside in, but in the same way he visited people before his suffering, death and resurrection - by serving them and by loving them from the inside out.  We see the Risen Christ breaking through the fearful defenses of his disciples locked  in the upper room, and then he allows Thomas to place his doubts intimately into his very wounds, so that Thomas can experience on our behalf what a broken human person redeemed completely by mercy from the inside out really looks and feels like.

We are to have this same experience when we receive the Eucharist during Easter.  For we take the Risen Christ deeply within us when we receive the Eucharist, allowing him to break through the inner recesses of those doubts and fears that still need to be healed within us.  At one time in our tradition some people only received the Eucharist once a year during the Easter season . . and prepared all year for this perfect experience of being visited by grace and mercy from the inside out in the person of the Risen Christ.  Without a doubt receiving the Eucharist during the Easter season is supposed to represent our biggest opportunity for change throughout the year - because we have prepared in Lent to receive the Eucharist more fruitfully.  We have humbled ourselves so that grace and mercy can visit us more deeply.  And until we have this experience of being visited by Christ where our deepest fears and doubts still remain, our Easter proclamation will limp.  We can proclaim Christ to be truly Risen, but it will be more of a guess or a bet or a vain hope, than a proclamation of the one thing I have most perfectly experienced and know to be true out of everything I know to be true.  For only when we know we are loved beyond a doubt, can we respond with greater faith.  And responding in faith keeps us on the path of perfect love paved by our Lord, a path on which we follow him with ever greater devotion.

John Paul II, who is canonized this weekend, renamed this 2nd Sunday of Ester Divine Mercy Sunday.  The Lord himself seemed to confirm this development of our tradition, as John Paul II died on the eve of this Solemnity in 2005, after having allowed the world to see his vulnerability and his complete dependence upon God's mercy in those last weeks of his life.  John Paul II begged us as Christians not to contemplate the minimum amount of mercy that we need to pay back what we owe God, and to sheepishly ask for mercy from Jesus out of his treasury of mercy.  Mercy doesn't just pertain to the penitential season of Lent for the forgiveness of sins.  No, John Paul placed our deepest contemplation of mercy, God's perfect love beginning at our weakest point where we need it most and cannot change or heal ourselves - he placed our celebration of mercy not in Lent, but in Easter, and proclaimed that we receive the most mercy when we are visited by the Risen Christ.  The image of divine mercy is an image of the Risen Christ dispensing grace and mercy in the form of white and red rays, from his sacred heart, and the fruit of the divine mercy devotion is greater faith, greater trust.

We receive the greatest love when allowing Christ with his victory over sin and death to break through our fears and doubts.  God's mercy, as Thomas learned is not just about saying we're sorry and paying back what we owe - no, it is allowing ourselves to be healed and loved by Christ in powerful ways, for when we are healed and loved then we respond with greater trust and faith - and proclaim Jesus as Lord and God as Thomas did - with absolute faith - that out of everything we know to be true - Jesus is Lord - Jesus is God - Jesus is truly Risen - these are the things we most know to be true.  Amen.