where is my peace?

Homily

2nd Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

11 April 2021

AMDG +mj

Where is my peace?

My peace comes when I am free to be myself.  It comes when I can explore my fears and doubts, never having to pretend to know something I don't.

My peace comes from honesty.  My anxiety from pretense.  Where is your peace?

It's a word chosen by the Risen Christ in response to fears and doubts.  Jesus is not back from the dead for revenge, though He deserves it.  He is back to reveal wounds transformed by divine mercy.  Peace is His chosen word.

Jesus says that if my peace comes from being able to explore my fears and doubts honestly, it's game on!  Start digging, Thomas!  Let's engage my wounds, then yours.  Because Thomas is honest about his fears and doubts, his reward is getting to feel the Resurrection.

Last week I said that of everything I know or will ever know to be true, I know that Jesus is Risen! I know it for lots of good reasons, most of all that I have tried to be a real disciple of Jesus. When I die to sin, fear and myself, I begin to truly live!

Yet Jesus invites me and you not to stop there!  Keep digging!  For faith in the Resurrection is meant only to increase, insofar as I let more of my fears and doubts be healed by divine mercy!

John Paul II showed us how it's done.  He died in 2005, on the eve of this great feast that he gave the Church.  He died not in hiding, but showing us his open wounds until the end, letting them be filled with divine mercy.

That's peace.   I have peace because my doubts and fears are never something I have to put away.  I never have to pretend to be more or better than I am.  My faith in the Resurrection instead rises up precisely from the point of my wounds which I know to be redeemed by divine mercy.  Amen.