24 April 2022 – 2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday) (Year C)

By Fr Francis Anthony

Dear friends,

We are just eight days after Easter after celebrating the greatest feast of the church – the Passion, Death and Resurrection. And in this celebration, we saw God’s love and mercy.

And today, the Sunday immediately after, it is Divine Mercy Sunday and asking us to remember this great event. Then in the Opening Prayer, very rightly it is saying:-

That all grasp and rightly understand (all of us).

They grasp and understand what? That in what form you have been washed. Referring to our baptism. We have been washed. Then it goes further:-

by who’s spirit has been reborn.

By that Spirit that has been given to us while we were washed, we have been reborn and by the blood, we have been redeemed. These are the things that has happened to us.

And today, we recall that great mercy of Christ who is hanging on the cross, that He is for us. And very beautiful line in the Gospel:-

Thomas was not present when Jesus appeared and he put big condition, unless I see, unless I touch and I feel, i would not believe.

When Jesus appeared, he just simply said:-

Lord, my God.

Though Jesus asked him to come and fulfill his wish, he did not dare. He knew it is the Lord and he made this great acclamation of faith:-

My Lord and my God.

I have no time to develop this. These are the new testament titles given to Jesus.

And after that, referring to all of us, Jesus was talking to Thomas, “You believe because you have seen me. You are satisfied. You ahve seen the wounds.” But then He says further, “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

All of us, I don’t know. I did not see Jesus but we believe on the strength of the Word of God manifested to us.

Happy are those who have not seen yet believe.

So let us thank God. In His great mercy, His death, the goodness of His death, the consequence of His death has reached us and to the future generation. And as I said earlier, on this Sunday while we are meditating on this great love and mercy of God, let us not bottle up this. Look in the Second Reading, the beginning. It says (John is writing this):-

My name is John (Yes), that disciple whom Jesus loved, who was at the foot of the cross and to whom Jesus said “Behold your mother” (indicating Mary was there).

And he said “Through our union, yes through his union (I would not say he was referring to the cross but his own personal love for God) through my own union with Jesus, I am your brother and share your suffering, your kingdom and all you endure.”

Yes, that is love being transferred. That is mercy being transferred.

And here through my union which is I am your brother (he is writing to the people of his time and the same thing he is saying to us), through my union, I am your brother and I share with your suffering, in your kingdom, in your concern.

So my dear friends, as you see this, let us ask God to give us the strength of John, to be a brother or a sister to all, to one another. Yes.

Faith is not ‘I believe in God’. Faith is also forgive my sins as I forgive. We say that in The Lord’s Prayer. Faith is relational.

And on this Sunday of Divine Mercy, let us look into our lives. If I am privilege to be seated here, because I am a Catholic and I am going to receive the Holy Eucharist, am I also through the strength sharing my life with others?

John shared his concern for our lives, for our sufferings. Likewise, am I reaching out? Am I bringing mercy and love? It is very nice to say we celebrate Divine Mercy. That Divine Mercy has to bubble over each one of us.

And today, we pray:-

God you died for me. Let me die to myself to reach out to others. Not the crucifixion on the cross but letting go of my pride, my ego, my selfishness and understand the need of others and reach out to them with the love and with mercy.

And that is what the text is saying in the Gospel:-

Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.

That belief is not just ‘I believe in God the Father’. That believe, that union with God, is making me to be in union with those among whom I am living.

Click below to listen to homily and watch video:–

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