April 27^th 2014. Second Sunday of Easter. Feast of the Divine Mercy

Gospel: John 20:19-31

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

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Your translator will attend the canonisations of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II in Rome next Sunday. For that reason it hasn't been possible to translate Don Fabio's new homily this week. Here below please find the homily for the second sunday of Easter last year (same Gospel). Normal service to resume next week!

Gospel:   John 20:19-31

On the evening of that first day of the week,

when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,

for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst

and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,

“Receive the Holy Spirit.

Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,

and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,

was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”

But he said to them,

“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.”

Now a week later his disciples were again inside

and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,

and bring your hand and put it into my side,

and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples

that are not written in this book.

But these are written that you may come to believe

that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,

and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Like the Apostles, we are all locked in inner rooms behind barriers of fear. This fear is at the background of all our sinful activity. Our obsession with our own preservation drives us to engage in activity that is harmful to others and ultimately to ourselves. How do we escape from this closed room of sin and fear? We are not capable of escaping using our own methods. Self-analysis and psychological techniques can only take us so far. The forgiveness of sins is something that only the Lord can do. In the Gospel, Jesus appears in the closed room and says "Peace with you!" He shows them his wounds of love and commands them to bring his pardon to others. We too need to have Jesus in our midst. We must look to him, listen to his word, and welcome him wholeheartedly into our inner enclave of sin and fear. We must contemplate his wounds, as Thomas did, and believe in his forgiveness. The Lord will dissolve our sin and make us capable of carrying his pardon to others. Who is this Jesus who wishes to live in our midst? He is the God who has carved us on the palm of his hands – the hands that bore the nails of the cross out of love for us. When I contemplate the risen Jesus I must do so in the light of his passion and cross, which demonstrate graphically the extent of his love for me.

The story of doubting Thomas is perfectly in line with Divine Mercy Sunday

The great Pope John Paul  II will be canonized today and he dedicated the second Sunday of Easter to the Divine Mercy. At first glance, this dedication might seem incompatible with the traditional Gospel reading which recounts the story of doubting Thomas. But in fact the dedication is perfectly consistent with the Sunday readings - the forgiveness of sins is the central element in the apparitions of Jesus to the apostles. "Those whose sins you forgive shall be forgiven. Those whose sins you retain shall be retained". This command should not be interpreted as a form of dominion or arbitrary power given to the Church by Jesus. It would be very worrying if that were the case. The command rather, should be understood to mean that we should make every effort to carry the forgiveness of God to as many people as possible, because no-one else except us has been entrusted with this mission. In this sense, if we do not bring pardon to people then there is no one else who will do it. We must not forget that the forgiveness of sins is very much a divine capacity. In the Gospels, the Pharisees object when Jesus tells the paralytic that his sins have been forgiven. Sin is an issue that only God can resolve. Our various techniques for analysing human brokenness can achieve some things that are positive, but they cannot dissolve sin. We can analyse ourselves endlessly, but only a relationship with God - the only being who is greater than sin - has the power to create things anew and eliminate sin. 

The Resurrection is the first day of a new order in which God's forgiveness is transmitted to the world.

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, let us reflect on how this divine capacity for the forgiveness of sins is transmitted to human beings. The Gospel begins on the evening of the first day of the week. Which week is being referred to here? It is the week which begins immediately after the week of God's new act of creation. During this act of creation the new Adam is wounded in the side, out of which flows blood and water. The week ends on the Saturday, the Sabbath day (according to the order of the Old Testament) in which Jesus is placed in the tomb. The following day, the day of Resurrection, is the beginning of a new order in which God is doing something entirely new. The forgiveness of sins requires going beyond the categories of the old world. The forgiveness of sins is effectively life after death. After the death of sin, the dissolution of sin allows us to live a new life. We can begin again because Christ is risen.

Just like the disciples, we are locked in closed rooms behind barriers of fear. Our sinful activity is a response to deep-seated fears. Only Christ can overcome these barriers and dissolve our sinfulness.

It is interesting that Sunday, the day of resurrection, is described in the Gospel as the first day of the week. In our secular world, Sunday is considered part of the weekend. But Sunday is properly viewed as the first day of the week, the day from which the week takes its departure! It should not be thought of as the day we arrive at exhausted after our week's work, looking to be regenerated in whatever way takes our fancy. The celebration of the Eucharist adds a completely new dimension to our existence  and sends us out into the world to live the new week that has begun. The Gospel tells us that the disciples were locked in the upper room for fear of the Jews. The human being is not capable by himself of escaping from the closed room in which his fears entrap him. Fear is in the background of all sin, as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us. The fear of annihilation, the fear of death is the motor that is whirring away behind all sinful activity. The human being, in his fear of destruction and his disordered quest for life, engages in behaviour that is harmful to himself and others. This wall of fear that generates sin must be demolished, but we are not capable of doing it. The pardon that makes us overcome the fear that generates sin is the free gift of God, the eruption of Christ in person in the upper room in which we are enclosed. 

We cannot overcome sin unless we have Jesus standing in our midst

The Gospel tells us that Jesus comes and stands in the midst of the disciples. What a beautiful expression - to stand in their midst! Chapter 15 of the same Gospel says, "If you remain in me then my word will remain in you". Jesus is the one who wishes above all to remain in our midst. He departs from us only because he leads the way and we do not follow. The basic characteristic of the Christian community is to have Christ in their midst. How many people focus obsessively on their own errors and problems because they remain only with themselves. Do we really think that this organism of body and spirit that produces sin can, of itself, find a way of escaping from our situation? And so we continue going around in circles until the one who says "Peace be with you" comes in our midst. This Hebrew greeting is a greeting that initiates a relationship between two people. In this case it is heaven itself that salutes us, indicating that heaven is not distant from us. Even if we are in a state of sin, enclosed inside our barricades of fear, Jesus comes to us exactly where we are, demonstrating that he simply wishes to be with us. 

In the Old Testament, God tells us that he has carved us on the palm of his hands. The wounds of love on the risen Jesus are the way that the Lord has carved us on his hands. 

He salutes the disciples as a friend, and then shows them the scars in his hands and side. In other words he recalls the memory of the Cross. Jesus is not with them as he was before. He is with them after the event of the Cross. His wounds are a demonstration of what he has done for them. As the prophet Isaiah says, "A mother cannot forget her child, but even if a mother were to forget her child, I have carved you on the palm of my hands". Those hands are the hands of Christ who bear upon themselves the marks of suffering love. The disciples look on Jesus and rejoice. We too must look only for him and to him. In order for pardon to enter our lives, and in order for us to become instruments of pardon, we must take our point of departure from the Lord. At the heart of our misery, we must allow ourselves to be visited by Jesus, we must listen to his word and look upon him. We do not have the solution for sin within ourselves; we must look to him for the solution. When Thomas is finally present, he too must look at Jesus and contemplate his wounds. All of us need pardon for our sins in order to escape from the narrow room in which we are enclosed. To bring this about, we must look at Jesus and stop looking at ourselves.