Florida Catholic | Sunday Word

Divine Mercy Sunday

The Resurrection: a perpetual moment of divine mercy

March 30, 2008 :: Acts 2:42-47; Ps 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24; 1 Pt 1:3-9; Jn 20:19-31

MSGR. MICHAEL REED

It became known to us as “Divine Mercy Sunday” on May 23, 2000, less than a month after Pope John Paul II canonized Sister Faustina Kowalska a saint of the Catholic Church. Two years later, on Aug. 18, 2002, Pope John Paul II dedicated a shrine to the Divine Mercy in a suburb of Krakow, Poland, not far from the convent where St. Faustina spread God’s message of mercy to a world which looked back at the 20th century as the bloodiest century of humankind, with ongoing vengeance in Ireland, Rwanda, Congo, Sudan, Korea, China, Croatia, Serbia, Nazi Germany, Russia and the Middle East. It was at the shrine dedication that Pope John Paul II looked from the threshold of the past and said: “How greatly today’s world needs God’s mercy! In every continent, from the depth of human suffering, a cry of mercy seems to rise up. … Where hatred and thirst for revenge dominate, where war brings suffering and death to the innocent, there the grace of mercy is needed in order to settle human minds and hearts and to bring about peace. … Wherever respect for life and human dignity are lacking, there is need for God’s merciful love, in whose light we see the inexpressible value of every human being. … Mercy is needed in order to ensure that every injustice in the world will come to an end in the splendor of truth … (the) fire of mercy needs to be passed on to the world. In the mercy of God the world will find peace!”

It is imminently significant that we should celebrate Easter and the Resurrection as God’s merciful response to a merciless world. We have been reminded what faces without mercy look like in the Gospel accounts of Roman authorities, soldiers, a crowd gathered at the praetorium, and Jewish and religious leaders. The crowd shouted out “Let him be crucified!” (Mt 27:22) and again “Let him be crucified!” (Mt 27:23) on Palm Sunday. On Good Friday, we heard the chief priests and guard cry out in John’s Gospel, “Crucify him, crucify him!” (Jn 19:6).

On Easter Sunday the full expression of Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Luke, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34), is manifested in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. God will have the last word — which will not be wrath, vengeance, retaliation — but the glorious raising of his Son from death. The Resurrection, then, will be for us a perpetual moment of mercy.

In the same way that Jesus responded to those who crucified him, to Peter who denied him three times and to Thomas who doubted him, so he responds to us with mercy — not giving us what our actions or crimes deserve, but offering us another chance, a new beginning, a new life. Jesus becomes for us the supreme witness. He is the ultimate example who encourages us to respond to the conflicts, crises, injustices and difficulties in life not with anger, retaliation, cruelty or any knee-jerk emotional reaction, but with God-like Divine Mercy.

Msgr. Reed is chancellor of the Pensacola-Tallahassee Diocese.

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