Second Sunday of Easter (Year A)
The Latin term, Misericordia, means a suffering heart. A heart so sensitive that any distortion, slight or grave, cuts causing pain and suffering. So sensitive to imperfections, a person pours out their pain pleading for healing, knowing that God is a God of hope who hears every prayer for He Himself understands suffering. God took upon Himself the sins of the whole world not to condemn but to redeem us from the distortions and corruptions that plague our purity. He, completely aware of our wounds, seeks only one thing. He seeks to show mercy, that outpouring of compassion, healing, creating, strengthening, and revealing his affirming love to those suffering from sin.
Mercy, an outpouring of divine compassion, is the Ruah, the Breath of God, known in the New Testament as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God’s Gift of Love (I, q. 36, a. 1) He hovered over the waters creating. In this last creative act, God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion” (Gen 1:26). Created in God’s own image, male and female: a unity of complementarity, humanity mirrors divine life. Man and woman made for each other become one and that oneness has the spirit of love abiding and binding one with the other.
As individuals, made in the image and likeness of our divine Creator, we are categorically more precious than anything else in the universe. Creation, a beautiful and precious gift, is pure matter, made of elements that lack life. We, on the other hand, are matter, but as scripture tells us, are imbued with Divine Life. We have the Ruah, the heart of the Father abiding within. Because of this indwelling, we are deemed greater than angels because God infuses his Holy Breath into our being. We are temples—tabernacles—of God’s glory and majesty.
We, as St. Paul tells us, “groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:23). Why does all of creation groan for redemption? Scripture tells us, “Through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it” (Wis 2:24).
Mercy is God’s Mission. Sending his Son into the world, He comes to wipe away every tear from our eye, every wound in our heart, and every cause of sin. Mercy, the compassion and consolation given to sinners, restores our dignity and destroys any envy. Mercy the supreme power of God’s love, sees our envy and pride, the source of all sin as a mere mist (Is 44:22).
Upon the cross, Jesus breaths. He, personified mercy, speaks: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). Though our sins be scarlet and crimson, Jesus breathes them away. We, who suffer the brutality of the Evil One, becoming instruments of his cruelty, become white as snow. God’s Spirit powerfully takes what was insanely insidious and makes us new. He recreates us restoring our dignity that divine image and likeness which surpasses even the angels.
Mercy Sunday, the Day of the Lord, comes and those who seek mercy receive mercy. Oddly, those who reject God’s mercy are most worthy to receive mercy for the greater the sinner, the greater the right to my mercy. Mercy reveals God’s infinite love to forgive sin, no matter how hardened our heart may be.
Mercy embraces the pain and suffering of the other freely, willingly, and courageously. Jesus, Mercy Incarnate, seeks to heal, inspiring hope despite all the sufferings and sadness, even the dark despair we endure because of envy. Mercy that unfathomable love accepts even the most disgraced and debauched of sinners, freely offering everyone forgiveness. The price of this mercy is the pain, suffering, and sin we endure. Instead of repressing and suppressing our sinfulness, Divine Mercy calls us to us to cry out: “Jesus, remember me” (Luke 23:42).
Mercy, the absolute power of God, changes corruption into integrity, division into union, dissention into agreement, and deception into truth. In other words, nothing separates us from the love of God: neither “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Rom 8:35).
The Paschal Mystery, the culmination of Christ’s life, dying on the cross then rising from the dead, touches the wounds of our hearts, especially those most sensitive wounds. His touch heals. His words soothe, His embrace affirms our intrinsic beauty and goodness because nothing, not even Satan’s envy, can destroy who we are: God’s precious possessions.
Sadly, at the foot of the cross, Peter was conspicuously absent, ashamed of his denial. In hiding, the despair, remorse, and regret overwhelmed him, but Jesus did not reject them, nor us. On that First Day, Jesus appears and breathes life into Peter and in the others, offering peace. Appearing, He declares twice, “Peace be with you” (John 20:21). Offering peace, Jesus reveals his divine mercy. Mercy not only forgives any denial but also restores friendship, that harmony of hearts. Mercy creates harmony in our fractured world. Mercy reconciles, curing our corruption, division, dissention, and deception. St. Peter, a man who knew sin, also knows God’s mercy. Jesus forgives him, while asking him, asking each of us, to love as He loved us.
The mercy of God initiates peace, that gift of God through which we experience divine love restoring our goodness and beauty. Mercy reconciles us with our God healing those wounds that not only damage ourselves, harm others, but those words, deeds, and thoughts that crucified Christ. Mercy offering peace causes inner harmony, a union of hearts in which conflicts are not just resolved, but friendship is restored. “I have called you friends” (John 15:15), Jesus declares telling them and us everything that the Father told Him. What did the Father tell the Son? “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matt 17:5). When we listen: seeking, asking, knocking, we too find peace, a harmony of hearts with the Father and Son.
Man’s heart needs reconciliation. Divine Mercy reconciles because the Heart of Jesus wants to show mercy. He wants our friendship, not just friendship with Him, but friendship with one another. In his first sermon, He tells us, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt 5:7). Mercy begets mercy. If we receive mercy, we, experiencing its healing power, want to share mercy. Jesus understands. He knows we need mercy but also knows our need to give mercy. Thus, He tells us to forgive others, not just seven times, but seventy times seven.
Jesus not only offers and encourages mercy—forgiveness—but empowers the apostle with the divine authority to forgive, as He forgave. “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:22–23). For the first time, the apostles have the authority not just to preach, cast out demons, and heal the sick (Mark 3:13-19), but now share—participate fully—in Jesus’ divine mercy.
Jesus, on his resurrection day, conquers sin, destroys death, and restores our life in Christ. We who were once a “no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy” (1 Pet 2:10). Mercy, that unfathomable gift, takes evil and all the harm it causes, and heals it. As the Psalm sings, “Mercy and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other” (Ps 85:10).
Mercy, the richness and boldness of God’s love, reveals a new heaven and a new earth. A new creation, where tears are wiped away, death is destroyed, mourning becomes dancing, because “the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:4). Envy destroyed; Jesus reveals our dignity. The Evil One overcome, Jesus unveils the glory of the Lord, who conquers not with force and might, but as St. John Paul II proclaims, quoting St. Faustina, “My daughter, say that I am love and mercy personified"., Jesus will ask Sr Faustina (Diary, p. 374). (John Paul II, Canonization Homily of Sr. Mary Faustina Kowalska Sunday, 30 April 2000). Knowing love and mercy are personified, our prayer confidently proclaims, Jesus, I trust in You!