Divine Mercy Sunday (4/15/2007)

Homilist: Fr. Donald Brick

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The message of Mercy came in the 1930's - a cold and rough era in which the evil of Communism raged. In this scene, a profound message of Divine Mercy blossomed from a woman in Poland named Sister Faustina Kowalska. The message of Divine Mercy was much persecuted before Pope John Paul II declared the second Sunday of Easter Divine Mercy Sunday. Significantly, he did this on the 5th of May during the Jubilee year at the canonization of the first saint in the 3rd millennium - St. Faustina Kowalska . For each generation, God the Father gives a special gift. For the 20th century it was the message of Fatima, for the 19th century the message of Lourdes. God the Father’s special gift and the gift that your heavenly Father desires to give the generation of the 3rd millennium is the gift of Divine Mercy!!!!!!

We have to ask ourselves what does the word mercy mean? It is not simply forgiveness. Some people say it means God’s forgiveness. We know that God is abundant in His forgiveness, but mercy means more than forgiveness. It is forgiveness plus an understanding of our weakness and an abundance of love. We would rather have someone be merciful toward us than simply forgive us. God is the embodiment of mercy. Mercy is where God’s justice and love meets, and He is abundant in His mercy. He understands our sins. He forgives us with love. And of course the proper response to the mercy of God is that we be merciful to others; we do not simply forgive them. We all need each other’s forgiveness, especially in our families. We do not simply forgive one another, but we are merciful toward one another, which means we are abundant in our forgiveness and our understanding of weakness and our love. It all comes together in mercy.

The more the human conscience succumbs to secularization, loses its sense of the very meaning of the word “mercy,” moves away from God and distances itself from the mystery of mercy, the more the Church has the right and the duty to appeal to the God of mercy, “with loud cries.” These “loud cries” should be the mark of the Church of our times, cries uttered to God to implore His mercy, the certain manifestation of which she professes and proclaims as having already come through Jesus crucified and risen, that is, in the Paschal Mystery. It is this mystery which bears within itself the most complete revelation of mercy, that is, of that love which is more powerful than death, more powerful than sin and every evil, the love which lifts man up when he falls into the abyss and frees him from the greatest threats. This is Divine Mercy Himself who comes toward us.

In the image of Divine Mercy, you will see there is light flowing from His heart. Part of the light is a reddish color and part of the light is white. This of course symbolizes the blood and water that flowed from the heart of Jesus as He hung upon the Christ. Many of you who saw the passion of Christ will remember that the way that this was dramatized in the movie; it was not just a trickle of blood and water that flowed from the side of Jesus but it was a gush, which is a sign of God’s abundant mercy in our lives. In today’s liturgy in the Opening Prayer was a prayer directed at the merciful God and in the Responsorial Psalm we repeated time and time again “His mercy endures forever.” In today’s Gospel, we hear of Jesus giving His disciples the power to forgive sins. So this is Sunday when the Church wants us to focus on the mercy of God.

“It is mercy that I want and not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13). Mercy toward the people's infidelity, "hesed," is the most salient trait of the God of the covenant and it fills the Bible from one end to the other. A psalm speaks of it in the course of a litany, explaining all the events in the history of Israel: "For your mercy is eternal" (Psalm 136). Being merciful appears in this way as an essential aspect to being "in the image and likeness of God." "Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36) is a paraphrase of the famous: "Be holy for I the Lord your God am holy" (Leviticus 6:36). But the most surprising thing about God's mercy is that He feels joy in being merciful. Jesus ends the parable about the lost sheep saying: "There will be more joy in heaven over one converted sinner than for ninety-nine just people who have no need to convert" (Luke 15:7). The woman who finds her lost coin calls out to her friends: "Rejoice with me." In the parable of the prodigal son also the joy overflows and becomes a feast, a banquet. We are not dealing with an isolated theme but one deeply rooted in the Bible. In Ezekiel God says: "I do not rejoice over the death of the wicked person but (I rejoice!) in his desisting from his wickedness and living" (Ezekiel 33:11). Micah says that God "takes pride in having mercy" (Micah 7:18), that is he takes pleasure in being merciful.

There is one centerpiece that St. Faustina learned from Jesus. It is trust. Jesus desires to enkindle in our wayward hearts, in our untrusting hearts, in our sinful hearts sentiments of the deepest possible trust, quite simply, a limitless trust in His mercy. St. Faustina was taught this limitless trust in a single phrase, “Jesus, I trust in you.” Jesus said to St. Faustina, “On this day, tell the whole world of My great mercy; that whoever approaches the Fount of Life on this day will be granted complete remission of sins and punishment. Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy. Oh, how much I am hurt by a soul’s distrust! Such a soul professes that I am Holy and Just, but does not believe that I am Mercy and does not trust in My Goodness. Even the devils glorify My Justice but do not believe in My Goodness. My Heart rejoices in this title of Mercy.”

There is a scene in the diary of St. Faustina actually witnessing a soul and Christ speak to the soul. The soul did not trust in the mercy of God and St. Faustina witnessed the sadness in Jesus as she looked upon the dialogue. We sometimes think that we sin more than others and become discouraged and fail to go to the Fount of Mercy. We do not want to believe in the great mercy of Our Lord, though He tells us there is no sin too great to be forgiven and only those who choose to remain beyond the scope of His mercy really are, but there is nothing that stands in the way of a sinner being reconciled to the Lord when that sinner is repentant. “If your sins be as numerous as the sands of the seashore you will still find in my heart an overflowing of mercy.” Yet, there are some souls that do not trust and later on become discouraged and that grieves the Lord more than the sins themselves. He wants us to run to His mercy, trusting completely in Him. I was directing a soul and she told me that once her priest had her sit and say continuously over and over, “Jesus, I trust in your love,” until she said it and meant it from the heart. This trust is essential to have engraved and written upon our hearts. It is confidence in that love that is essential to the spiritual life.

I want to tell you something: even the most beautiful souls, who burn to be in the Heart of Jesus, do not want to believe that confidence is the key which will open the door for them, because the door is a wound made by love. People often look for other ways, as if this way were too beautiful to be reliable. People often say, “It is to beautiful to be true.” The answer is simple, “Jesus bought me at a dear enough price, His very own blood, which is indeed beautiful.” In one of his novels Dostoyevsky describes a scene that has the air of having been witnessed in reality. A woman holds a baby a few weeks old in her arms and -- for the first time, according to her -- he smiles at her. All contrite, she makes the sign of the cross on his forehead and to those who ask her the reason for this she says: "Just as a mother is happy when she sees the first smile of her child, God too rejoices every time a sinner gets on his knees and addresses a heartfelt prayer to him." If Divine Mercy is the beginning of everything and it demands mercy among men and makes it possible, then the most important thing for us is to have a renewed experience of God's mercy. This is the Easter experience par excellence.

The author Franz Kafka wrote a novel called "The Trial." In it there is a man who is put under arrest without anyone knowing the reason why. The man continues his normal life and work but also carries out extensive research to find out the reasons, the court, the charges and the procedure. But no one knows what to tell him except that he really is on trial. In the end two men come to carry out the sentence, execution. During the course of the story it comes to be known that there are three possibilities for this man: true absolution, apparent absolution, and pardon. Apparent absolution and pardon would not resolve anything; with them the man would remain in mortal uncertainty all his life. In the true absolution "the trial procedures will be completed eliminated, the whole thing would disappear; not only the charge but also the trial and the sentence would be destroyed, all will be destroyed."

But it is not known whether there have ever been any of these true absolutions; there are only rumors about them, nothing more than "beautiful stories." The novel ends, as all the others of this author do: Something is glimpsed from far away; it is anxiously pursued like in a nightmare, but there is no possibility of reaching it. At Easter, the Church's liturgy conveys the unbelievable news that true absolution exists for man; it is not just a legend, something beautiful but unattainable. Jesus has "canceled the bond that stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross" (Colossians 2:14). He has destroyed everything. "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," exclaims St. Paul (Romans 8:1). No condemnation! Nothing at all! For those who believe in Christ Jesus!

In Jerusalem there was a miraculous pool and the first one to climb into it when the waters were stirred up was healed (John 5:2ff). The reality, even here, is infinitely greater than the symbol. From the cross of Christ there flowed water and blood, and not just one, but all who step into this fountain will leave it healed. We on this feast of Divine Mercy dive into the miraculous pool through the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist to be healed and to trust. In the Eucharist we receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself said, “This is my Body, This is my Blood given up for you. Do this in memory of me.” This Sacrament gives us an increase in sanctifying grace, which is a sharing in the life of God. St. Faustina said, “The most solemn moment of my life is the moment when I receive Holy Communion. I long for each Holy Communion, and for every Holy Communion I give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity... “

We come here to open the doors of our hearts to the fullness of this mercy, on the feast of Divine Mercy Sunday. Cardinal François Xavier Van Thuân, alluding to the rite of the opening of the Holy Door, said in a meditation: "I dream of a Church that is a 'Holy Door,' open, that welcomes all, full of compassion and understanding for the pain and suffering of humanity, completely ready to console it."

Pope Benedict, in his Apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, points out explicitly how important it is for people to discover the need for mercy. He urges that there should be a balanced and sound practice of gaining indulgences, whether for oneself or for the dead. It leads to a renewed appreciation of the relationship between the Eucharist and Reconciliation. He said, “By this means the faithful obtain “remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. “ He continues, “The use of indulgences helps us to understand that by our efforts alone we would be incapable of making reparation for the wrong we have done, and that the sins of each individual harm the community. It is to receive the fullness of God’s Mercy.” You are also worth what your heart is worth. The whole history of mankind is the history of the need of loving and being loved.... Whatever use humans make of it, the heart—the symbol of friendship and love—has also its norms, its ethics. To make room for the heart in the harmonious construction of your personality has nothing to do with mawkishness or even sentimentality. The heart is the opening of the whole being to the existence of others, the capacity of divining them, of understanding them. Such a sensitiveness, true and deep, makes one vulnerable. That is why some people are tempted to get rid of it by hardening one’s heart.

Brother and sisters, do not harden your hearts. Open them fully to all that Christ wants for you. Raise your eyes more often toward Jesus Christ! He is the man who loved most and most consciously, most voluntarily and most graciously. Look at him step toward you with His glorious wounds and like St. Thomas put your life into the marks of the nails. Meditate on Christ’s testament: “There is no greater proof of love than to give one’s life for those one loves.” Contemplate the Man-God, the man with the pierced heart!