Christus surrexit! Vere resurrexit!
Christ is Risen! Indeed He is risen! Alleluia!
My dear friends in Christ…
two years ago this month…
on this feast of Divine Mercy…
Pope John Paul the Great passed from this life
into the loving arms of our Heavenly Father.
On April 2nd 2005…
a cardinal led the faithful in Saint Peter’s Square
in the recitation of the Rosary…
as the Holy Father spent his last moments on earth
in the celebration of the Holy Mass.
Throughout his papacy, John Paul promoted the beautiful spiritual exercises
revealed by the Lord Jesus to a young nun from his beloved Poland
named Faustina Kowalska.
From her young adulthood…even before she entered the convent…
Faustina experienced personal visits from the Lord,
who revealed to her His longing for souls to trust in Him
and His desire to cleanse them in the immense ocean of His mercy.
The Lord taught Faustina the special prayers called the Chaplet of Divine Mercy…
and the Novena to Divine Mercy,
which many Catholics now pray from Good Friday until today.
He even revealed to her the Divine Mercy image,
which He desired to be painted and venerated.
And He declared to her that He desired that the Second Sunday of Easter
be a Feast dedicated to His Mercy.
The Lord Jesus told Faustina that He desires priests
to proclaim His great mercy towards sinners.
And so Pope John Paul did as the Lord commanded…
he spread devotion to the Lord’s mercy throughout the world…
he established the Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday
in the universal liturgical calendar of the Church…
and he even canonized Sister Faustina a saint.
And so it is not merely coincidental…
but, rather, it is wonderful and beautiful…
that Pope John Paul passed from this life on the vigil of this feast…
the very liturgical celebration he loved so dearly.
The Divine Mercy image before our Altar was first revealed Faustina
on the evening of February 22, 1931…
when Jesus Himself appeared as He desired the image to be painted.
Faustina describes in her diary that she was struck with great joy
as the Lord showed Himself to her in her convent cell.
Jesus was clothed in a white garment,
with one hand laying in His chest…
the other hand raised in blessing.
Two rays were seen coming from his side…
one of them red and the other pale.
The meaning of the rays was not revealed by the Lord until three years later.
He said to her…
“The two rays denote blood and water.
The pale rays stands for Water which makes souls righteous.
The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls…
These two rays issued forth from the very depths of my tender mercy when my agonized heart was opened by a lance on the Cross…
Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter.”
Recall that, when the soldiers found Jesus dead on the Cross on Good Friday…
one of them thrust a lance into His side…
piercing His Sacred Heart…
and from His Heart gushed forth a torrent of blood and water.
This blood and water is the source of the very life of the Church…
As the woman eve is created out of Adam’s rib…
so the Church is born from the side of Christ
as He hangs on the Cross.
The Blood is His Precious Blood, the food our souls long for…
the very Blood which is made present to us in the Holy Eucharist.
The Water is the water of Baptism,
by which new Christians are given life in Christ.
We recall the words the Prophet Ezekiel uses to describe a vision from God,
words which are sung in the great Hymn of this season…the Vidi Aquam…
“I saw water flowing from the right side of the Temple.”
From the wound in the pierced Heart of Jesus…
the great flood of blood and water bursts forth…
cascading down over the whole Church…
rushing through this holy temple…
and washing over each of us…
the living stones in the Body of Christ.
For the sorrow of the Cross is our joyful redemption.
The wounds of Christ are the source of our healing.
It is into this wound in Christ’s side…
still present in Christ’s glorified body as a trophy of victory…
that the doubtful Saint Thomas gingerly places His hand.
It is this wound which is the source of our new life.
For those among us who were baptized and confirmed last week…
your new life in the Church has just begun…
and the grace of the Easter Sacraments
remains to strengthen you in your journey of faith.
For those of us who have been Catholics our whole lives…
the witness of our new members is a moment to be reminded
that the great gift which comes from the wounded Heart of Jesus…
ought never be taken for granted.
We have never touched this wound as Thomas did.
We are those who have not seen and yet believe!
And yet the Lord does not leave us without a real experience of His presence.
In the Sacraments we experience a tangible sign of the grace of God…
His very divine life at work in our souls.
In Baptism we are reborn to new life.
In the Eucharist Christ is really present and the hunger of our souls is nourished.
In the Sacrament of Penance our wounds are healed
by the infinite mercy of Jesus…
who endured His wounds that we might be saved.
In the Gospel today,
Jesus gives to the disciples the power to forgive sins in His name.
He says to them…
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”
To the priests of the Church Jesus entrusts the ministry
of being instruments of His mercy…
that mercy which is infinite and ever loving…
that mercy which He longs to bestow on us…
if only we come to Him, humbly confessing our sins and our wounds.
Jesus gives to us the Sacrament of Penance because of His boundless mercy…
and the Church continues the ministry of reconciliation.
For where the world has in many ways given up on forgiveness…
…given up on second chances…
Where the world is ready to destroy a person because of a mistake…
Christ and the Church say “I bring mercy.” “We bring healing and forgiveness”
Today Jesus says to us…
“Come, touch my wounds. Trust in me.
Be not unbelieving but believe in my mercy.”
Today we rejoice in Paschal glory…
and our hearts echo the words of the beautiful Easter hymn…
“At the Lamb’s High Feast we sing,
Praise to our victorious King,
Who has washed us in the tide,
Flowing from His pierced side!”
Christ is indeed Risen!
Saint Faustina, pray for us!
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