Today we celebrate this love that reveals itself, is implemented as
mercy in our daily existence and urges each of us to have “mercy”
towards the Crucifix. In fact, the life of the good Christian consists
in the holy desire of God, loving him and his neighbor and even the
“enemies”.
Christ reveals not only that God is Love, but that God is mercy because He not only loves man but the Risen One shows that He loved the guilty man. God has not only good children but also rebellious ones, beings who are not worthy neither useful nor pleasant in themselves nor good to Him.
He has loved and loves those who are farthest from him and the most miserable, the most adverse and the worst. This love was prodigious not only in itself and for the intimate happiness of God, but also for the undeserving beings who are its inexplicable object of love. God, paternally loving the sinner, gives an example of supreme goodness saving him with recreating forgiveness.
Mercy bows over evil not for it to remain and or justice to be won, but rather for justice to be recomposed in its rights and have its claim. God loves the bad person not because he is such, but to make him a good one. While pushing mercy to the point of canceling the fatal consequences of sin, God restores the absoluteness of the moral law bringing the sinner back to it.
This singular relationship between mercy and justice is one of the most profound and most clearly resolved problems of Christianity. No one thinks that God’s mercy, announced as it should be and revealed in its source and in its term, which is Love, is complicit with evil and weakens the strength of the moral imperative. Mercy manifests to everyone that it alone can recover the lost good to repay the evil done and to generate new forces of justice and holiness.
Today as then, the liturgical celebration is not simply a commemoration of past events, nor even a mystical and interior experience, but essentially an encounter with the risen Lord, who lives in the dimension of God, beyond time and space. Nevertheless, he makes himself truly present amid the community, speaks to us in the Holy Scriptures and breaks for us the Bread of eternal life. Through these signs we live what the disciples experienced, that is the fact of seeing Jesus and at the same time not recognizing him. It can also happen to us to touch his body, a real Eucharistic body that gives peace.
In this regard, it is useful to recall what the Gospel says, namely that Jesus, in the two apparitions to the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room, greets them several times saying “Peace be with you” (Jn 20: 19.21.26). The traditional greeting, with which we wish each other hope and peace, becomes here a new thing: it becomes the gift of the peace that only Jesus can give because it is the fruit of his radical victory over evil. The “peace” that Jesus offers to his friends is the fruit of God’s love that led him to die on the cross and to shed all his blood as a gentle and humble Lamb “full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).
This is the reason why Saint John Paul II wanted to name the Sunday after Easter Sunday of the Divine Mercy with a very precise icon: that of the pierced side of Christ from which blood and water come out, according to the eyewitness testimony of the apostle John (see Jn 19: 34-37). Now Jesus is risen and from Him the Easter sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist spring forth: those who approach them with faith receive the gift of eternal life.
This Sunday’s Gospel shows how the Risen Lord helps to confirm this faith in the Apostle Thomas and in each of us, who like this apostle want to meet Christ by touching him. This Gospel passage, in fact, shows the merciful goodness of Christ, who – to help the faith of St. Thomas the Apostle, appears a second time and asks him to put his finger into His pierced chest from which blood and water had come out. (Jn19, 34)
Today we are asked to remember the encounter of an incredulous man who could put his hand into Christ’s chest. From Christ’s heart pierced by sin surges the wave of mercy. Even if our sins were dark as the night, divine mercy is stronger than our misery. Only one thing is needed, that the sinner leaves ajar the door of his heart…God will do the job.
Saint Faustina Kowalska wrote that everything begins in His mercy and everything ends in His mercy. For this reason, Saint John Paul II had dedicated the Second Sunday of Easter to the Divine Mercy.
In fact, today’s liturgy, starting with the first prayer, is a liturgy of mercy. Undoubtedly Saint John Paul II decision was inspired by the private revelations of Saint Faustina who saw two rays of light, a red one which represents blood and a white one which represents water, coming out from the chest of Christ. If blood recalls the sacrifice of the cross and the gift of the Eucharist, water recalls baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Jn 3:5; 4:14; 7:37-39).
Through the pierced chest of the crucified Christ, divine mercy reaches humanity. Jesus is “Love and Mercy personified” (Saint Faustina Kowlaska, Diaries 374). Mercy is the “second name” of Love (Dives in Misericordia, 7) caught in his most deep and tender meaning and in his ability to take charge of every need and, above all, of the need of forgiveness. “The great wound of the soul is the great mercy of God” (Saint Eusebius).
Jesus “uses” the ointment of his chest’s sore to cure Thomas’s heart, which has been wounded by incredulity. The medicine of his mercy is greater than human sins. He goes to Thomas, to his disciples and to every one of us and doesn’t ask “What did you do?” but “Do you love me?” as He did to Peter on the lake’s shore after the resurrection. The answer that Peter and we have is our pain, but that’s enough for Him. In the same way, He did with Peter, He confirms us in his merciful love, a love that liberates, heals and saves.
We are poor and fragile things, but we can rejoice if we say,” My God I trust you” (as suggested to Saint Faustina by Jesus; Diaries, 327) because the announcement of this mercy is the source of gladness: Jesus is mercy. He is the envoy by the Father to let us know that the supreme characteristic of the essence of God is mercy.
We should ask ourselves if we are always conscious of the fact that we live because of God’s mercy and of his charity that gives us life, freedom, love, hope, forgiveness and all graces. We should also ask ourselves if we practice charity. Charity is a fact that touches the roots of man’s life because it is acceptance of the way of living of Christ, who “for your sake became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). It is the acceptance that Christ is the richness of our life and that we must follow him without regretting what we leave behind. (Mt 19, 21)
Charity/ mercy is not pure and simple philanthropy, but it is the love for Christ that we reach through our poorest brothers: “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Mt 25). Therefore, Christ accepts that the most expensive perfume is “wasted” on him instead of being sold to get money for the poor. Christ is the valid foundation of every love for the poor.
Merciful Jesus Christ, I Trust In You.
Merciful Jesus Christ, I Believe In Your Love For Me.
Merciful Jesus Christ, Your Kingdom Come.
Christ reveals not only that God is Love, but that God is mercy because He not only loves man but the Risen One shows that He loved the guilty man. God has not only good children but also rebellious ones, beings who are not worthy neither useful nor pleasant in themselves nor good to Him.
He has loved and loves those who are farthest from him and the most miserable, the most adverse and the worst. This love was prodigious not only in itself and for the intimate happiness of God, but also for the undeserving beings who are its inexplicable object of love. God, paternally loving the sinner, gives an example of supreme goodness saving him with recreating forgiveness.
Mercy bows over evil not for it to remain and or justice to be won, but rather for justice to be recomposed in its rights and have its claim. God loves the bad person not because he is such, but to make him a good one. While pushing mercy to the point of canceling the fatal consequences of sin, God restores the absoluteness of the moral law bringing the sinner back to it.
This singular relationship between mercy and justice is one of the most profound and most clearly resolved problems of Christianity. No one thinks that God’s mercy, announced as it should be and revealed in its source and in its term, which is Love, is complicit with evil and weakens the strength of the moral imperative. Mercy manifests to everyone that it alone can recover the lost good to repay the evil done and to generate new forces of justice and holiness.
Today as then, the liturgical celebration is not simply a commemoration of past events, nor even a mystical and interior experience, but essentially an encounter with the risen Lord, who lives in the dimension of God, beyond time and space. Nevertheless, he makes himself truly present amid the community, speaks to us in the Holy Scriptures and breaks for us the Bread of eternal life. Through these signs we live what the disciples experienced, that is the fact of seeing Jesus and at the same time not recognizing him. It can also happen to us to touch his body, a real Eucharistic body that gives peace.
In this regard, it is useful to recall what the Gospel says, namely that Jesus, in the two apparitions to the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room, greets them several times saying “Peace be with you” (Jn 20: 19.21.26). The traditional greeting, with which we wish each other hope and peace, becomes here a new thing: it becomes the gift of the peace that only Jesus can give because it is the fruit of his radical victory over evil. The “peace” that Jesus offers to his friends is the fruit of God’s love that led him to die on the cross and to shed all his blood as a gentle and humble Lamb “full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).
This is the reason why Saint John Paul II wanted to name the Sunday after Easter Sunday of the Divine Mercy with a very precise icon: that of the pierced side of Christ from which blood and water come out, according to the eyewitness testimony of the apostle John (see Jn 19: 34-37). Now Jesus is risen and from Him the Easter sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist spring forth: those who approach them with faith receive the gift of eternal life.
This Sunday’s Gospel shows how the Risen Lord helps to confirm this faith in the Apostle Thomas and in each of us, who like this apostle want to meet Christ by touching him. This Gospel passage, in fact, shows the merciful goodness of Christ, who – to help the faith of St. Thomas the Apostle, appears a second time and asks him to put his finger into His pierced chest from which blood and water had come out. (Jn19, 34)
Today we are asked to remember the encounter of an incredulous man who could put his hand into Christ’s chest. From Christ’s heart pierced by sin surges the wave of mercy. Even if our sins were dark as the night, divine mercy is stronger than our misery. Only one thing is needed, that the sinner leaves ajar the door of his heart…God will do the job.
Saint Faustina Kowalska wrote that everything begins in His mercy and everything ends in His mercy. For this reason, Saint John Paul II had dedicated the Second Sunday of Easter to the Divine Mercy.
In fact, today’s liturgy, starting with the first prayer, is a liturgy of mercy. Undoubtedly Saint John Paul II decision was inspired by the private revelations of Saint Faustina who saw two rays of light, a red one which represents blood and a white one which represents water, coming out from the chest of Christ. If blood recalls the sacrifice of the cross and the gift of the Eucharist, water recalls baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Jn 3:5; 4:14; 7:37-39).
Through the pierced chest of the crucified Christ, divine mercy reaches humanity. Jesus is “Love and Mercy personified” (Saint Faustina Kowlaska, Diaries 374). Mercy is the “second name” of Love (Dives in Misericordia, 7) caught in his most deep and tender meaning and in his ability to take charge of every need and, above all, of the need of forgiveness. “The great wound of the soul is the great mercy of God” (Saint Eusebius).
Jesus “uses” the ointment of his chest’s sore to cure Thomas’s heart, which has been wounded by incredulity. The medicine of his mercy is greater than human sins. He goes to Thomas, to his disciples and to every one of us and doesn’t ask “What did you do?” but “Do you love me?” as He did to Peter on the lake’s shore after the resurrection. The answer that Peter and we have is our pain, but that’s enough for Him. In the same way, He did with Peter, He confirms us in his merciful love, a love that liberates, heals and saves.
We are poor and fragile things, but we can rejoice if we say,” My God I trust you” (as suggested to Saint Faustina by Jesus; Diaries, 327) because the announcement of this mercy is the source of gladness: Jesus is mercy. He is the envoy by the Father to let us know that the supreme characteristic of the essence of God is mercy.
We should ask ourselves if we are always conscious of the fact that we live because of God’s mercy and of his charity that gives us life, freedom, love, hope, forgiveness and all graces. We should also ask ourselves if we practice charity. Charity is a fact that touches the roots of man’s life because it is acceptance of the way of living of Christ, who “for your sake became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). It is the acceptance that Christ is the richness of our life and that we must follow him without regretting what we leave behind. (Mt 19, 21)
Charity/ mercy is not pure and simple philanthropy, but it is the love for Christ that we reach through our poorest brothers: “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Mt 25). Therefore, Christ accepts that the most expensive perfume is “wasted” on him instead of being sold to get money for the poor. Christ is the valid foundation of every love for the poor.
Merciful Jesus Christ, I Trust In You.
Merciful Jesus Christ, I Believe In Your Love For Me.
Merciful Jesus Christ, Your Kingdom Come.
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