Notes and reflections for a homily on the Sunday within the Easter Octave

Following the Mass yesterday at Holy Hill, I was asked to share the text for my homily based on the appearance of risen Christ to St. Thomas.  A bit was said impromptu but I'm posting what I had prepared before me... and I've provided something of a "more finished" end...

What do our Scriptures tell us today on this “Mercy” Sunday?

         1) St. John the Evangelist tells us in today’s Gospel: “Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, ‘Peace be with you.’”  Twice in the passage He does so.  The Risen Christ has the power to enter the places of the heart which we keep locked up, out of fear.  His love is not deterred by our stubborn lack of faith.  He actively seeks us out to reveal to us His power and His love.

         2) It is in spite of our stubbornness of heart that the Risen Jesus reveals His power.  “Love conquers all fear,” St. John’s First Letter tells us (1 John 4:18).  Jesus only invites us to look at His wounds and to touch them in faith.  As He says to Thomas, so He says to us: SEE MY WOUNDS … look upon my RISEN BODY and see what GOD desires for you to BECOME.  Forget your betrayals and infidelities.  LOOK at ME.

Jesus reveals to Thomas and to us the beauty and the truth of our humanity.  That even our many WOUNDS can become life-giving … an opportunity for compassion, a door to let God into our lives again.  Do not be unbelieving but belief.  Because as St John tells us, our faith in Christ is our means of conquering (1 John 5:4).

3) Jesus can still be touched today.  St. John of the Cross tells us that faith touches God (see Spiritual Canticle, 12.4).  For this reason, Jesus says: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”  Brothers and sisters, our FAITH permits us to personally encounter God and to touch the glorious wounds of Christ.  Faith brings us HEALING.  Those who refuse to believe outright are crippled by arrogance, unable to acknowledge whatever their minds cannot grasp.  This is a GREAT misery—to allow our tiny minds to be the measure of reality.  …Christian faith is NOT some “feel-good” optimism or mere positive thinking; but rather, faith embraces the truth that reality in God is NOT bound by or restricted to the limits of our paltry understanding.

4) In Jesus, God enters the locked upper room of our heart and reveals His power to save us.  Mercy brings LIFE and LOVE where there was NONE.  Christ desires to enter the dark recesses of our hearts and to carry there the light of His love—He wants to free us from fear, from sin, from death.  For this reason He accepted the Cross.

Blessed John Paul II, a man well-acquainted with suffering, having lost all the members of his family to death by the time he was only 20 years old, a man who worked in labor camps at the time of Nazi occupation, and a man who was nearly murdered by an assassin while blessing the multitudes at St. Peter’s… this man wrote:  “The cross is like a touch of eternal love upon the most painful wounds of man’s earthly existence” (Dives in misericordia, 8).  The cross—in our petty sufferings, our impatience, our inconveniences, our misunderstandings—this cross is the path that, with Jesus, leads us to Resurrection and a peace that knows no limits…

         5) Let us trustingly examine our hearts before the Risen Christ who enters the locked Upper Room of our heart and desires to give us His peace there.  His is not a peace conditional upon our merits and righteousness.  It is HIS peace, bestowed at His pleasure, to reveal to us the indomitable mercy that comes to us from the Father.  A love that triumphs over death in any of its particular manifestations during this passing life.  Jesus is like that owner of the vineyard, hiring workers throughout the day and paying them as HE wishes, who asks: “Am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?  Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matt 20:15).  His “plenty” stems from His inexhaustible life, shared with His eternal Father, and now broken open to be poured out, through the Holy Spirit… upon whomever He pleases.  May God grant we might be truly surrendered to the unfathomable gift of this Life.

Notes for Sunday within the Easter Octave

Notes on a Divine Mercy Sunday Homily
Today is a glorious day in the Church—it is the final day of the Easter Octave, the great celebration of the Resurrection, it is the feast of Divine Mercy…
Our Gospel today is SO rich.  It speaks to the depth of the human heart.
Poor Thomas… He wasn’t present in the upper Room when Jesus first appeared to the other apostles.  And he lived for a whole week with the others, feeling so alone in his disbelief.  “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  No doubt he LONGED TO BE FREED from this prison he built; no doubt he wanted to share in the JOY he saw in the others…  Then Jesus appears a second time.
What does this powerful Gospel tell us today, on this Mercy Sunday?
        1) St. John the Evangelist tells us: “Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, ‘Peace be with you.’”   The Risen Christ has the power to enter the places of the heart which we keep locked up, out of fear.  His love is not deterred by our stubborn lack of faith.  He actively seeks us out to reveal to us His power and His love.
2) It is in spite of our stubbornness of heart that the Risen Jesus reveals His power.  Love conquers all fear, St. John’s First Letter tells us.  Jesus only invites us to look at His wounds and to touch them in faith.  As He says to Thomas, so He says to us: SEE MY WOUNDS … look upon my RISEN BODY and see what GOD desires for you to BECOME. Forget your betrayals and infidelities.  LOOK at ME.
         Jesus reveals to Thomas and to us the beauty and the truth of our humanity.  That even our many WOUNDS can become lifegiving … an opportunity for compassion, a door to let God into our lives again.  Do not be unbelieving but belief.  Because as St John tells us, our faith in Christ is our means of conquering.
        3) Jesus can still be touched today.  St. John of the Cross tells us that faith touches God (i.e., "Faith, ... gives and communicates God himself to us" [Spiritual Canticle, 12.4]. For this reason, Jesus says: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” Brothers and sisters, our FAITH permits us to personally encounter God and to touch the glorious wounds of Christ.  Faith brings us HEALING.
        Those who refuse to believe outright are crippled by arrogance, unable to acknowledge whatever their minds cannot grasp.  This is a GREAT poverty—to allow our tiny minds to be the measure of reality. Imagine a great athlete who has enormous physical ability but he believes he is paralyzed and cannot move.  …It is not that our Christian faith is some kind Peter Pan optimism; but rather, faith acknowledges that reality in God is NOT bound by the limits of our understanding.
         4) In Jesus, God enters the locked upper room of our heart and reveals His power to save us.  Mercy brings LIFE and LOVE where there was NONE.  Christ desires to enter the dark recesses of our hearts and to carry there the light of His love—He wants to free us from fear, from sin, from death.  For this reason He accepted the Cross. In Blessed JP II’s encyclical, Dives in misericordia (Rich in Mercy), he writes: “The cross is like a touch of eternal love upon the most painful wounds of man's earthly existence.”
         Today, we celebrate God’s infinite Mercy revealed in Jesus Christ—may we not turn to this Mercy only for FEAR of God’s condemnation, but rather in order to return LOVE for LOVE.  Let us turn to God is CONFIDENCE and LOVE and permit Him to live in our hearts.

Post-Resurrection Impressions

In April of 1571, St. Teresa of Jesus was living in Salamanca.  The day after Easter Sunday she was feeling very down and put to paper a reflection for her confessor at the time--Fr. Martín Gutiérrez, S.J., who was rector of the Jesuit house there.  She says: "All day yesterday I felt very lonely, for except when I received Communion I benefited little from the fact that it was Easter Sunday" (Spiritual Testimonies, 12).  Loneliness.  It is an affliction that touches us at the core and it is a suffering that we make great efforts to remedy time and time again.  There are times in our lives, no matter how we surround ourselves with others or lose ourselves in some task or another, when we simply pine for a rendezvous wherein we know ourselves to be known and loved intimately.  And with a love that is all-assuring and absolute.  To be embraced from within.


Teresa says that shortly thereafter: "One day after receiving Communion, it seemed most clear to me that our Lord sat beside me; and He began to console me with great favors, and He told me among other things: "See Me here, daughter, for it is I: give Me your hands." And it seemed He took them and placed them on His side and said: "Behold My wounds. You are not without Me. This short life is passing away" (ibid.).  ... Ah, this is the love we desire--the love of One who has been to the depths of hell, bearing aloft like a torch His unquenchable love, seeking any who are lost.  One who understands my longings.  Just as Jesus showed His wounds to His disciples, He shows them to Teresa in order to console her and to awaken her to His divine perspective.  Forever He bears His wounds in order to assure us that His love is stronger than death.  And He does not "leave us orphans" but rather "prepares a place" for us to finally be with Him (John 14:3,18).


Teresa's experience of loneliness serves as the pretext for her visit from the Risen Christ.  Perhaps it is there, in our painful longing for a definitive rendezvous, where Christ our God takes our hands and places them on His side.  Our ache is met by the touch of God.  Dark faith conceals and reveals the One for whom we long.  Behold My wounds. You are not without Me. This short life is passing away.


(Icon painted by Br. Claude Lane, OSB of Mt. Angel Abbey, OR)