THE DIVINE MERCY

II EASTER SUNDAY - John 20:19-31

The proclamation of God’s mercy is at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus started his preaching by calling on people to repent and to believe, because the kingdom of God is at hand (Mk 1:15). In the parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep and the prodigal son (Lk 15), Jesus speaks of great rejoicing in heaven, when someone who was lost has been found and welcomed back in the father’s house.

When confronted with the accusation that he went about with sinners, Jesus answered that the sick are the ones who need a doctor (Mt 9:12). He came for the sinners, and not for the ones who are holy already.  In no uncertain terms Jesus said:

“Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mt 9:13).

In the beatitudes, Jesus teaches: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” (Mt 5:7) God is a  merciful God. Already in the Old Testament, God revealed himself to Moses as a merciful God:

“The Lord, the Lord,

a God merciful and gracious,

slow to anger,

and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,

forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin”. (Ex 34:6-7).

The whole ministry of Jesus had no other motive but to show God’s love and mercy. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

God is merciful and we are called to be merciful. We are in need of forgiveness, but must be ready to forgive in order to be forgiven. And that’s what we ask in Our Father: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”.

The mystery of God’s love and mercy is an essential part of our daily christian life. However, all of us - individually and as a community - fall short of a life worthy of God’s mercy. Time and again, we misrepresent God and think of him as a harsh, cruel and merciless God. Being afraid of him, we stay away from him. We do not trust his love and mercy, and we are not ready to recognise our shortcomings, our failures and our sinfulness. That’s why we need to be reminded time and again of this most basic truth that God is merciful and that we can throw ourselves into his merciful arms.

Pope Francis likes to say that God never gets tired of forgiving us; we are the ones who get tired of asking for forgiveness.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, we hear that Jesus commissioned his disciples, breathing upon them, giving them the Holy Spirit and granting them the power to forgive sins. The forgiveness of sins is an essential part of the mission of the Church, who is the body of Christ.

In the year 2000, the Pope St. John Paul II presented to the Church the Sunday after Easter as the Sunday of Divine Mercy. It is a special Sunday for us to become aware of God’s mercy and of our duty to be merciful. It is a day of thanksgiving and praise to God for his infinite mercy. In this Sunday, we must ask the Lord Jesus to breath upon us and to give us his Spirit, so that we live as a community of reconciled people.

The devotion to the Divine Mercy has become widespread in the Church, due to the profound experience that St. Faustina had of the Risen Lord as the Lord of mercy.

First of all, we must ask for God’s mercy, recognising our sins and turning back to him with total confidence in his merciful love. As a consequence, we must be merciful. God’s mercy must flow through us to others. We must extend to others the mercy which we receive. And we must do that with complete trust in Jesus Christ.