At the end of the Gospel reading today, Saint John tells us that he has written these things down so that we will believe that Jesus is the Christ; that through belief in His name, we will have life. That is the purpose of Our Lord’s coming: that we would have life. He said we would have life to its fullness. He wants us to have abundant life. Not just natural life, like somebody, for instance, who is lying in a hospital bed, dying. The person is still alive, they still have life. The Lord wants us to have life to the full - abundant life. He wants us to be overflowing with His life. It is not merely natural life the Lord gives to us, but it is supernatural life that He is offering to us. He is giving us His own self.
These things are difficult for us to grasp. So, the Lord, many times over, has tried to demonstrate His love to us. A few hundred years ago, He appeared to Saint Margaret Mary and showed us His heart to demonstrate how much He loves us. He said to her, "Behold the heart that has loved men so much and has been loved so little in return." He is loved so little in return because we don’t really believe. We don’t believe in the love of God. We don’t believe in the mercy of God.
Today the Church celebrates Divine Mercy Sunday. In fact, right here we have a picture of Our Lord as He appeared to Saint Faustina. He told her of the mercy He wanted to give to the people, if only we will believe. That is our problem: We don’t really believe in Jesus Christ. We don’t really believe in the promises of Our Lord. Tragically, most of us are lukewarm at best. We listen, Sunday after Sunday, and, hopefully, we read the Scriptures every day. Yet we walk away, for the most part, unchanged because we really don’t believe. We know fully well if we did believe we would have to change our lives; we would have to do something different; we would not fit in anymore with all the people out in the world.
We would be like the apostles who were gathered in Solomon’s Portico, but the people were afraid to be with them. It said in this morning’s reading "they didn’t dare to come over to them." Even though more people were added to them in great numbers, the people were terrified because they were different. They were not like the other Jews of the time. There was something special about these people that set them apart. Because they were set apart, nobody wanted to be with them. But each one of us has been set apart. Each one of us has been consecrated to the Most Holy Trinity on the day of our baptism. The word "consecrate" means literally to set apart. We have been set aside for a holy purpose. To do God’s work, we are not to be like everyone else out there; we are to be like Jesus Christ.
It is interesting, when we look at the second two readings today. When Jesus appears to His apostles, he says to them, "Peace be with you." They were not at peace. They knew Jesus Christ, they believed in Him (sort of), but they were not at peace. And in the second reading we hear Our Lord say, "Do not be afraid." Why should we be afraid? The only reason we would be afraid, the only reason we would not be at peace is because we don’t trust Him. We don’t fully believe. In our heads, we know; but in our hearts, we don’t accept. We keep Jesus at an arm’s distance so that our lives don’t have to change. We don’t want to let Him in very far because we know that it will do something to us; something wonderful, something incredible, but we don’t know what. So, we count the cost and we don’t let Him any closer. We are afraid to be vulnerable with God.
We look at the Scripture that is here, and listen to Our Lord’s words: "Do not be afraid. Be at peace." The Holy Spirit is breathed upon the disciples and they are given the authority to forgive sin, our sins. When we really know that our sins are forgiven, we can be at peace. We have nothing to fear if we truly believe in the promises of Our Lord. But we live in a day and age when the mercy of God is more necessary than ever before. It is true that we live in the most sinful society that history has ever known. We need the mercy more than ever. As Our Lord told Saint Paul, "Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more." So there is an absolute, overwhelming abundance of grace that is available to us today because there is an overwhelming abundance of sin in the world today.
But that is not the only reason the devotion to the mercy of God is so necessary. It is necessary today, more than ever, because people don’t believe in the mercy of God. They don’t believe in their own dignity. They don’t believe in the forgiveness of sin. Hey don’t believe that God really loves them because they don’t believe that they can be loved. So the Lord comes to us, once again, and He points to His heart. The rays of love flow from His heart depicting, in the two different colors, the waters of Baptism and the blood of Jesus Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament. They are the Eucharist and Baptism; the covenant and the celebration of the covenant that each one of us has entered into.
The Lord wants us to understand. He wants us to know and to believe. He wants us to be at peace, knowing that our sins are truly, actually, and completely forgiven. These are not just empty rituals we are going through. We don’t just go through the motions of coming here, Sunday after Sunday, and walk out unchanged. This is a reality that is more profound than anything in the world. It is the true and real presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, and the actual reality of having your soul cleansed of sin. When you kneel before the priest and hear those beautiful words of absolution, you walk out with the knowledge, the unshakable knowledge, that your sins have been removed from your soul. They are there no longer. The mercy of God is greater than anything we can do; that is what Our Lord wants us to know. There is nothing we can do that is bigger than Him. He wants, more than anything, to forgive our sins.
When we think about the events of the last week that we have celebrated, the Passion, the Crucifixion, the Death, and the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we need to think about what He did. He took to Himself every single sin that ever had been committed and ever would be committed in the history of the world. He took it all to Himself. He took them to the Cross and crucified them there. Every sin that you and I have ever committed and will ever commit has already been crucified in the person of Jesus Christ. When Jesus rose from the dead, He rose victorious over sin and death. There was no more sin affecting Him, it was destroyed. And death was destroyed with it because death is present because of sin, it is one of the effects of sin. The Lord destroyed it so that we are no longer going to be held bounds by the bonds of death; we no longer have to live in fear of death.
If the Lord has already taken every single sin that we could commit, that we have committed, or that we will commit, why are we afraid that our sins are not forgiven? Why don’t we believe that the Lord really will forgive us? Or that He really has forgiven us? Think of the worst possible sin that you have ever committed. More than that, think of the worst possible sin that anyone in the history of the world has ever committed, or ever could commit. Let your imagination run for a minute. What is the worst thing anybody could ever do? Saint Therese of Lisieux tell us that is like one little drop of water in the ocean of God’s mercy. The worst thing, the biggest thing that we could ever commit is like one little drop of water in the ocean because God’s mercy is infinite. His love for you is infinite; it is beyond anything we could ever grasp or imagine. As big as our sins might be, they are nothing for the Lord. If you have confessed the sin, it is gone, it is not there anymore. We stand back and say, "Yeah, but..." And the Lord looks you right in the face today, as He looked at Thomas 2,000 years ago, and He says, "Doubt no longer, but believe." Believe because He promised it. Believe because He did it. He nailed that sin to the Cross already. It is over with, it is done. If you have confessed it, it’s gone. That is the mercy of God.
But it doesn’t end there. His mercy is so that you can have life; so you can share His divine life in this world. Far more than that, it is so that you can be united with Him forever in the next world; so that you can go to Heaven; so that you can be one with Jesus Christ for eternity. That is the mercy of God. That is the promise He has made. Doubt no longer, but believe. Let your life be changed. We need to be transformed in Jesus Christ because we don’t live merely a natural life; we live a divine life. Sanctifying grace is the very life of God and it has been poured forth into your soul, if you are in the state of grace, so that the life of Jesus Christ can be lived in you. We need to believe that. We need to accept it. That is how much Our Lord loves us. He died for us so that we could have His life. He took on our sins so that we could be sinless. He accepted our death so that we could have His life. He went into hell so that we could go to Heaven. That is the mercy of God.
When we can believe that, then we need no longer be afraid. We need not be afraid to go to confession. We need not be afraid of death because our sins are forgiven and we have been given life. We have the promises of Christ; in those promises, we can be at peace if we truly trust Our Lord and what He has said. When we can be at peace, when we are filled with trust, when we are no longer afraid, then it can be said of each one of us what was said of Thomas when he made that profession "My Lord and my God" : He doubted no longer, but believed.
Note: Father Altier does not prepare his homilies in advance, but relies solely upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.
April 7, 2002 Divine Mercy Sunday Reading I (Acts 2:42-47) Reading II (1 Peter 1:3-9) Gospel (St. John 20:19-31)
In the Gospel reading today, we see Jesus in His resurrected body breathing on His disciples and telling them, "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." This is something that we have all heard, probably thousands of times, but believing in it is a problem for many people on the practical level. People have trouble believing that their sins are forgiven because they do not necessarily feel different when they walk out of the confessional. They have trouble believing that their sins are forgiven because they still remember them and they still struggle with the temptations and the weaknesses that are there because of the sins they have committed.
And the devil is going to be right there to hold your sins up in front of your face and remind you of the things you have done. The things that are the most shameful in your life, the devil is very happy to bring those up and to wave them in front of you and show you what a horrible sinner he wants you to think that you are. More than that, what he really wants is for you to walk away saying, "My sins can’t be forgiven." There are lots and lots of people who have that difficulty. There are many older people who struggle with this as they come near to the end of their lives. It is a common temptation of Satan to be able to say, "You know those sins you committed back when you were a teenager – how do you know that they’re gone?" The older people begin to start thinking back to all of the sins they committed when they were children and young adults and they start to become troubled and anxious inside, not sure because they do not remember. "Did I confess all of those? Did I confess them completely?" They get all upset and they start going back and trying to dig up all their past sins. The devil laughs because he gets them all upset and there is no peace in their heart as they look forward to union with Christ.
We need to learn to trust. The devil gets us in many different ways. [He tries] to convince us that we do not need to be forgiven because we really did not sin. That is a particular problem of younger people and middle-aged people. We have numbed our consciences. We sit in front of the TV for hours, filling our minds with garbage, and then we do not think we have done anything wrong. People go out and they do, sometimes, the most heinous things. It always makes me smile - at the same time it makes my heart drop - when people come in and say things like: "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
It’s been about 20 years since my last confession, and you know, I really haven’t done anything wrong. I’m a good person. There really isn’t anything too major that I’ve done." Then when they start their confession, I have to ask myself, "What would be major, if these things aren’t?" What is it that we really think is a serious sin? We have gotten to the point that unless we murder someone or have an abortion, we think that we have not done anything too bad so we really do not need forgiveness. And the devil laughs because he has you right where he wants you – right on the road to hell – because you do not think that you have to be forgiven. He gets you on the scrupulosity, on the one side; or he gets you with the numbness of conscience on the other. Either way, he does not care - as long as he has got you where he wants you.
And so the Lord, knowing the situation in the world today, appeared, back about 70 years ago, to a young nun in Poland, and He showed Himself to her as an image of Divine Mercy. Underneath that beautiful image of Our Lord with the rays coming forth from His heart symbolizing the Eucharist, the blood and the water coming forth, the fountain of sacramental life in the Church, showing to us His mercy, it says simply: Jesus, I trust in You.
Now the question each one of us needs to ask, and needs to ask very, very seriously of our own selves, is - Do we trust Him? Do we take Him at His word? It is Jesus Himself who said, "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven." Do we believe Him? You have to realize the importance of this question because it also, then, is going to color every other thing that Jesus said. If we do not believe that our sins are forgiven (or if we do not believe that we have sinned, therefore, we have nothing to be forgiven), what we are doing, as Saint John says, is "making Him a liar". Is that what we want to do to Our Lord?
Of course, if He did not mean what He said with the forgiveness of sin, we have to ask ourselves - Did He mean what He said when He told us that He is God? Did He mean what He said when He said, "This is My Body…This is My Blood"? Did He mean what He said when He told His disciples that He would rise from the dead? Did He mean what He said when He told us that we would have everlasting life, that we would share in salvation, that we would share in the inheritance which is God Himself?
In the second reading, Saint Peter tells us about this inheritance which is kept undefiled for us in Heaven. It is waiting for us on the promise of Jesus Christ. But if Jesus did not really mean what He said when He told us that our sins would be forgiven, then He could not really have meant what He said when He told us about eternal life because we would not be able to have a share in eternal life if our sins cannot be forgiven. And so the real question, then, that we need to ask is - What evidence do we need that our sins are forgiven? I think it is important to look at what Jesus said to Thomas today, "Have you believed because you have seen? Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe." You are here today because you believe that Jesus Christ is God. And you believe that He is the Word of God, the Word through Whom and for Whom all things were created, and apart from Him nothing exists. God spoke that one Word in all eternity and all things came to be. Jesus spoke and people were healed. Jesus spoke and sins were forgiven. Remember the paralytic whom they lowered down through the roof and Jesus said, "Your sins are forgiven." They scoffed and said, "Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" Jesus said, "Fine. Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Pick up your mat and walk’? So that you will believe…." Then He looked at the paralytic and said, "Pick up your mat and walk." They saw and, therefore, believed. Blessed are you who have not seen and yet believe. You believe on the witness of the testimony of Scripture.
People today, of course, want to call all of this into question. What I would suggest to you is to look at some other areas that we do not seem to call into question. It always amazes me how Americans believe everything they see or read in the media. Because some reporter on TV said it, it must be true. We believe in a testimony of a reporter who was not even present at whatever occurred. We read something in the paper that they may have twisted all over the place and we believe because they said that so-and-so said this. But when it comes to people that the Church has infallibly proclaimed to be saints, we are not so sure whether or not we want to believe them. When it comes to the Scriptures, which the Church has infallibly proclaimed are inspired by God, we are not so sure if we want to believe them. We are not sure if the testimony that is there is true. How do we really know? We did not see it. Yet we are willing to believe everything that is on the TV set and everything that we read in the newspaper. I would suggest that maybe we ought to reverse the way we think about those things and start believing in what we read in the Scriptures - and forget about the media.
We need to learn to trust. As I tell people very often in the confessional, trust is one of the most difficult areas in the spiritual life to develop because it will only grow by doing it. Therefore, God has to put you into positions where you have no choice but to trust. We do not like that at all. We complain and we kick and we scream. Then we are not so sure we really want to do these things anymore. "If this is what it means to take up the spiritual life, I quit!" And that is exactly what we do. We pull back and we would rather sit in our unbelief and our untrusting way than to have to be put into a position where we really trust.
So I just want to ask you - What are you going to do on the last day of your life when you are lying on your death bed and you have to look at what is going to happen the moment that you die? You can continue to trust in yourself and you will go to hell. Or you can trust in Jesus Christ and you will go to Heaven. But do not think that is going to start on your deathbed; it starts now. The choices that you make now are the ones that are going to continue on. If you have continued to reject Jesus and say, "I don’t believe. I don’t trust. I don’t have proof: I can’t see it; I can’t get a grip on it; it’s not tangible. Therefore, I don’t accept it," then on the day of your death you are going to say the exact same thing. "I can’t see Heaven yet. I can’t Jesus, my Judge, standing there waiting for me. I can’t see eternal life, therefore, I’m not going to believe." Satan said, "I will not serve." What are we going to say to the Lord? "I will not trust"? "I will not believe"? "I will not accept"? "I will not serve"? "I will go my own way and I will do what I think I can get a grip on"? The devil will be very happy to give you lots of things to hang onto.
Jesus says, "Faith and trust." We need to make those acts of faith and trust now or we are not going to be able to on the last day of our life. It starts in the belief in who Jesus Christ is, the belief of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and the belief in the forgiveness of sin. "Doubt no longer, but believe," Jesus said. What more did He need to do to demonstrate the truth to us? But, in our unbelieving hearts, we have been led astray by Satan and we have chosen not to believe.
On this day, when we celebrate the Feast of Divine Mercy, we need to make an act of the will, an act of faith, an act of hope, and an act of charity, to say yes to God: "I will doubt no longer. I will believe because it is You who have said it. I will trust in You, Lord Jesus, and believing and trusting, I will love." That is what the Lord is asking of us. Not to have proof, not to have anything tangible to hang onto, but to look at Jesus on the Cross and ask ourselves, "Do I believe?" Look at the picture of Divine Mercy right here [Father is pointing to a portrait of the Divine Mercy Image on the side altar] and come to the Lord this morning. Look right into His face and repeat the words at the bottom, and mean it from the bottom of your heart: Jesus, I trust in You.
*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.
April 27, 2003 Divine Mercy Sunday
Reading I (Acts 4:32-35) Reading II (1 John 5:1-6) Gospel (St. John 20:19-31)
In the second reading today, Saint John tells us that we have conquered the world and that what gives us this victory over the world is our faith in Jesus Christ. And we read at the very end of today’s Gospel reading that all of these things that have been written down are written so that we will have faith, so that we will know that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, and that we will have life in His Name. So it is evident that the life Saint John is talking about is different than the natural life that we already have. It is also evident that he is talking about things in the immediate rather than just saying, “so that you will be able to go to Heaven.” That is what faith will do for us, ultimately, but even in this world the faith that we have gives to us a life which is different from just the natural and worldly life.
And so we have to ask ourselves, “What does it mean to have conquered the world?” The Lord tells us in Saint John’s Gospel that He has overcome the world. And when we look at what we celebrate in this glorious feast of Easter, it is precisely the fact that in His humanity Jesus Christ has indeed completely overcome the world and everything of the world. He has destroyed death. He has destroyed everything that is not of God. Not destroyed it in the sense that it is not there any longer, but rather destroyed it in the sense that it has no power over us. Now the way that it will have no power over us is if we are living our faith in Jesus Christ – and that choice lies entirely with us.
We have spoken many times about the dignity which is ours because of our baptism, what it means to be a member of Jesus Christ. We know that in Baptism we were baptized into the death and the Resurrection of Christ. We already share, then, in His Resurrection. Last week, we heard from Saint Paul that we are to keep our focus on the things above rather than on the things of earth because we are already seated at God’s right hand in Christ. If we are members of Jesus Christ and He is resurrected and ascended, then we are resurrected and ascended with Him, which is why faith in Jesus Christ overcomes the world. But we need to look at ourselves and ask ourselves, “Are we keeping our focus on the things above rather than on the things below? Are we really living our faith in Jesus Christ?”
To live one’s faith in Jesus Christ does not mean to show up for one hour on Sunday morning. That is not living one’s faith in Jesus Christ. That is saying, “Well, since I claim to be a Christian, I guess I have to act a little bit like it. And there’s an obligation to be at Mass on Sunday, so I guess I have to do that.” But that is not living one’s faith in Christ; that is putting one’s toe in the water and seeing what the temperature is. To live one’s faith in Jesus Christ is to take the plunge off the diving board into the deep end. In fact, that is precisely what our Holy Father has asked us to do. A couple of years ago, he wrote a document that is called Duc in Altum, which means “Put Out into the Deep”. Do not be wading around in the shallow end anymore, get out into the deep where you are going to be able to make a catch.
We need to look at this faith of ours. Are we immersing ourselves in the world or are we immersing ourselves in Jesus Christ? It is one or the other; you cannot have both. We have to live in the world, but as we have already seen, there is a life and a way of life even in this world that is not of this world. And that is what we need to ask ourselves if we are living. If we are living for this world, it is to have more, better, more expensive, fancier, bigger, all of the worldly things, everything that the marketing people can convince us that we need to have. Why do we think we need them? Look at the life of Jesus: He lived in this world with nothing. Look at the early Church, what we heard in the first reading: The community of believers was of one heart and one mind, and none of them considered anything to be their own. Now that is not something we are able to do in the situation of today; one can only do that in a small community, which is what the early Church was. We have that, for instance, in monastic life. You look at the monks and the nuns, and none of them own anything of their own; everything belongs to the community. But in a family that can certainly be the case.
So I challenge you: When you go home today, look around your house – not only for all of the stuff that you really do not need – but look around the house and ask yourself, “What do I consider to be mine?” as opposed to, “What do I consider to be ours?” If we are living a true life in Christ, it isn’t about “mine” and “yours” – it is “ours”. It would be “our house” and “our car” and “our things” not “mine”. We need to really think about that. We look at the generosity and the charity of the people in the early Church that we hear about in the first reading. When there were people in need, they sold the things that they had and distributed to the needy. Most Americans, the studies tell us, can live no longer than about two months if they were to lose their job today. And it is not because they are spending their money only on what is necessary; it is because we have this problem that if we have more money, we think we need to buy more things with it. And it is all about the self! It is all about “me”; it is all about “getting more for myself”. “I’ve got more money, I need a new car. I’ve got more money, I need a bigger house. I’ve got more money, I need more stuff” – a new cabin, a new boat, whatever it happens to be. Why? There are things that are necessities, and they are just that; the rest of it is not. We do not need to have these things.
We really need to look at ourselves that way and compare our life to the life of the Holy Family. Look at the example of Jesus and Mary and ask yourself quite simply, “Is this the way that Our Lady would live her life if she were in the 21st century? Would she be living the way that I am?” Would she want to have the fanciest, brand-new car with all the buttons and gadgets to impress everybody? She might have a car; I doubt she would have the fanciest one she could find. Would she want the biggest house with the most expensive TV set so she could watch the filth that is on there? I kind of have my doubts. Just look around your house and ask, “What would not be in the house if Jesus and Mary lived here?” If we have faith in Jesus Christ, He does live there! And so you can look around your house and ask yourself if you have overcome the world or if you have immersed yourself in the world. Are you living your faith in Jesus Christ or are you living your faith in the almighty dollar?
These are the things we need to look at. If we really, truly believe what we profess, we have risen in Jesus Christ, we are already seated at God’s right hand in Jesus Christ, and we have conquered the world in Jesus Christ. Instead, most Americans, rather than believing in the Resurrection and living it, have given into death and have immersed themselves in it. Putting ourselves deeper and deeper and deeper into materialism and money would be tantamount to Jesus saying, “You know what? I like being dead in the tomb and I think I’ll stay here.” We do not seem to want to rise above the world – we want to immerse ourselves deeper into it. That is not living our faith in Jesus Christ. That is what we need to look at. What is being offered to us is life, life in Christ. Jesus has conquered the world and this faith of ours gives us victory, not only over sin and death, but over the world itself and over Satan. So the life that is being offered to us is a life of true freedom; it is the life of Jesus Christ and all that that entails. But the choice is ours: to immerse ourselves in the world or to immerse ourselves in Jesus Christ. And it is this faith of ours in Jesus Christ that has conquered the world.
*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.
The Feast of Divine Mercy
April 18, 2004 Divine Mercy Sunday Reading I (Acts 5:12-16) Reading II (Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19) Gospel (St. John 20:19-31)
Today the Church celebrates the Feast of Divine Mercy. This is a very new feast, and it is something which is of great interest because to my knowledge it is the only feast in the Church that we celebrate based on a private revelation. Never before has this been done. Obviously, God’s mercy is something that the Church has preached and believed in from the very beginning, and yet never before has the Church placed such emphasis on something which has been revealed to just a single individual. If we think, for instance, about the Feast of the Sacred Heart, we can think about the revelations to Saint Margaret Mary. But the reality is that that has very little to do with the Feast of the Sacred Heart. While the Church acknowledges the apparitions, it does not place such emphasis on it as to allow the liturgical practices of the Church to be influenced heavily by the apparitions. This particular feast is a little different. The only reason why we have the Feast of Divine Mercy is because Our Lord appeared to Saint Faustina and revealed to her His desire for this feast.
It is something that our Holy Father has put great emphasis on – thanks be to God! – because while God’s mercy is available to us 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it is something that is very important for many people to be able to know in a very specific way the mercy of God. I found it interesting even just yesterday hearing confessions because throughout the course of Lent (particularly in Holy Week) we always hear the confessions of quite a few people who have been away from the Church, but yesterday I heard more confessions from people who have been away for quite a while than I heard during Holy Week; so obviously there are people who are coming back specifically because of this feast and because of the promises that Our Lord has made.
The promises that He made really are the same as we have with many other things: that our sins will be forgiven and the temporal punishment due to sin will also be completely removed, that the soul will be as pure as it was on the day of our baptism. What that means is that a plenary indulgence is attached to the praying of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, as well as doing all the other things that are required. The things that would be required would be going to confession eight days either side of this feast, that is, anytime from last Saturday through next Monday. You have to go to confession and you have to receive Holy Communion sometime during those sixteen days. You have to pray the Chaplet. You have to pray for the intentions of our Holy Father (the Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be). And you also have to be detached from every aspect of every sin that you have ever committed. That, of course, is the difficult part. Nonetheless, the promises that Our Lord has made to us are great and they are beautiful. They are something that we really need to pay attention to.
When we look at the picture of Divine Mercy, as we see right here on Our Lady’s altar, underneath the picture of Jesus are the words “Jesus, I trust in You.” That is something we do not do very well, to trust in Our Lord. We all like to say that we trust in Jesus, but when it comes right down to it most of us really do not. We are afraid of letting go of things because we are not sure if God is really going to do what He has promised to do. In the practical day-to-day existence, we trust far more in ourselves and far more in other people and far more in money and material things than we do in God, which is a pretty tragic statement because remember what Our Lord has told us in the Gospels: If someone is trustworthy in small matters, then they are to be trusted in larger matters; but if they are not trustworthy in small matters, then neither are they trustworthy in large matters.
Well, when we consider this point of trusting in Our Lord, He has made extraordinary promises to us; promises, for instance, of heaven, of eternal life; promises that we are going to be united with Him; the promise that our sins are going to be forgiven. Now if we cannot trust God in small matters, how are we ever going to be able to trust Him in the large things? The problem for many of us is that we do not have clear evidence that something has occurred. But if we look at the Gospel reading today, we see Thomas saying, “I’m not going to believe unless I put my finger into the holes in His hands and my hand into His side.” Jesus appears in His mercy and shows Himself that way to Thomas, and then says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” How often we struggle with the question of whether or not our sins are truly forgiven. The problem is we cannot see that anything has happened. We cannot see the sins on our soul, and we cannot see that they have been removed. But Our Lord, in today’s Gospel, breathes on His disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven.” He did not say, “Whose sins you forgive are swept under the rug.” He did not say, “Whose sins you forgive I’ll keep them in mind and I will hold them against them later on.” He said, “They’re forgiven.” That means they are gone, and it means that they will never ever be heard of again. But we fear because we do not trust. Saint John tells us that fear has to do with judgment. And so even though we come before Our Lord and confess our sins, we still are afraid because we do not really believe that they are gone. He has made the promise, and the One Who has promised is trustworthy. We simply need to place our trust in Him because He has made the promise.
When we think about this feast and we think about the mercy of God, at first glance, one might think that this would be better if it were celebrated during Lent. After all, for six weeks of praying and doing penance, we were seeking the mercy of God. Now, all of a sudden, here we are on the octave day of Easter, the height of the celebration of Our Lord’s Resurrection, and suddenly we turn and we are asking God once again for mercy. But, in fact, it is rather perfect because remember as we celebrate the octave what that means is that for eight days we celebrate the feast itself. So today, as we have for the last week, we are in fact celebrating Easter Day – not just the Easter Season, which we will be celebrating for the next six weeks – but literally Easter Day. The reason for that is because it is a new creation. The Lord created in seven days, but on the eighth day He rose from the dead. And so for the largest feasts in the Church calendar, the Church gives to us an octave to be able to recognize that because of the mysteries of our Faith we have become a new creation, and that God, especially through the Resurrection, has re-created the earth and has re-created each one of us so that as we are baptized into Christ we have literally and truly become a new creation in Christ.
So today as we celebrate the octave of Easter, we also celebrate this feast which connects what happened on the Cross with what happened on Easter Sunday. Anyone who has been praying the Novena of the Divine Mercy knows that they had to begin that novena on Good Friday, and it culminates, of course, with the events of this day. It connects Good Friday with Easter Sunday, and it reminds us that the mercy of God is found in the Cross of Jesus Christ. It is found in His Precious Blood and it is found through the power of the Resurrection. Sins are forgiven because of the Cross. But it was not enough that Our Lord went to the Cross; if He did not rise from the dead, we would not be able to rise to new and everlasting life. Those events are intimately connected. So too, the new creation in Christ which takes place in our souls is completely united with His Cross and His Resurrection.
Now as we ponder the mercy of God, we must be very, very careful to understand it in its proper sense. There are many people in our day and age who have fallen into a very unfortunate heresy, into a trap which the devil has laid for them to say, “It is true that God is merciful. In fact, God is so merciful that you can do pretty much anything you want. You don’t have to confess your sins because God is merciful. In fact, on the day you die you will stand before God, Who is so merciful that He will see on that day that you are sorry for your sins and He will forgive you on the spot. You will go straight into heaven.” That is rank heresy. The reason for that is because at the moment we die and the soul separates from the body there is no more changing of the mind. There will be no repentance on our part after we die. Consequently, there will be no mercy.
The mercy of God is known only in this life. It will find its fulfillment in the next where we recognize that because of the forgiveness of our sins we will be able to enter into life, but the forgiveness of sins happens only here. That is for mortal sins. Venial sins can be forgiven in the next life, but that means a long time in Purgatory. What we want is to be able to get to heaven, and God in His mercy has done all of the work for us – except for one thing. We all know that if something is made too easy, it really does not mean a whole lot to us; but if it costs us something, if it is something which is somewhat difficult, then it means much more to us. So there is a cost that is involved. The greatest cost of all, of course, is the very life of Our Blessed Lord Himself. When we look at the Cross and recognize what it cost for our sins to be forgiven, how grateful we need to be! But there is a cost on our part as well. It is a relatively small cost – indeed, a very small cost – yet one that sometimes seems very difficult for some. That is simply to humble ourselves and confess our sins. That is all that God requires. Of course, along with that is the repentance which implies that we intend to stop committing the sins, that we are going to try to amend our lives. But all that God is asking of us is to confess our sins. He has done everything else, and He continues to do everything else. All that is left for us is that one thing. We simply need to ask ourselves, “Is that too much to ask?”
We like to think that we can lie on our bed and think about our sins and be sorry for them, but that does not work. The reason that does not work is because God, Who treats us with mercy and love, treats us with the full dignity of our human nature. As human persons, the normal mode of communication is not to lie on one’s bed and ponder things. You cannot do that with your spouse and children; you cannot do it with God either. The normal mode of human communication is to speak and to hear. So God in His mercy has set up something for us to be able to do exactly that: to speak what it is that we have done and to hear that in fact we have been forgiven. Lie on your bed as often as you will and think about your sins, and yet you walk away with the sins still on your soul. The conscience will still be troubled because you do not have any knowledge that your sins have been forgiven. But when you come to confession and you hear those beautiful words from the mouth of the priest, “I absolve you from your sins in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” your sins are gone and you have knowledge that your sins are gone forever – never ever to be heard of again – even on the Day of Judgment.
That is the mercy God is offering to His people. He has done everything for us, and He has given to us the means by which our sins can be forgiven. All that He asks of us is to humble ourselves, to confess our sins, and to trust in Him.
*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.
The Divine Mercy Devotion and a Memorial to Pope John Paul II April 3, 2005 Divine Mercy Sunday Reading I (Acts 2:42-47) Reading II (1 Peter 1:3-9) Gospel (St. John 20:19-31)
Today, which is the octave day of Easter; the Church celebrates Divine Mercy Sunday. When we think about an octave, it is reminiscent of creation. It is the eighth day; that is what the word octave means: “eight.” And so the eighth day was for the Jewish people the greatest day of the feast. Recall that last Sunday we celebrated Easter, and an octave means that for eight days we celebrate the feast, so we have not only a celebration of Easter on Easter Sunday, but the Church celebrates Easter for eight days, this being the greatest as it is the octave day, the first day of the new creation, the day of the Resurrection. It is the day on which the love of God is poured into our hearts in a profound way.
It is in the midst of the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead that we turn once again to beg for mercy. Mercy is obtained for us through the Passion of Christ. It is a fact that God will extend His mercy to anyone who asks, and yet at the same time we have to recognize the cost. Mercy does not come without a cost – and the cost of mercy is the Cross. So as we look at the Resurrection, one might wonder why in the midst of the celebration of the Resurrection we suddenly seem to go back to where we were in Lent, asking for mercy. But there is no contradiction because you cannot celebrate the Resurrection without the Passion. The Resurrection has no meaning without the Crucifixion, and so there is nothing that is inherently contradictory about these two elements that the Church celebrates on the same day. In fact, it is the Resurrection that grants to us the hope that if the mercy of God is extended to each one of us that we too will be able to share in the glory of His Resurrection.
The celebration of this feast day is really dependent on one person, and that is Pope John Paul II. The revelations of Our Lord, of course, were given to Saint Faustina, but initially back in Poland the local bishop had squelched the Divine Mercy devotion as he was investigating the whole apparition, trying to determine the situation and what would be best. So, for the time, he had stopped any spread of that devotion.
Then there was a new cardinal who was appointed in Krakow, a man by the name of Karol Wojtyla. Cardinal Wojtyla, recognizing the importance of this particular devotion to Divine Mercy, allowed it to once again be publicly spread. He, of course, was then made the Pope.
And very early on in his pontificate, he spread the devotion of Divine Mercy beyond the confines of his diocese in Poland to the whole world.
The Holy Father, in his latest book, which has not yet been translated into English, explains why he did this. Some of his detractors have given him lots of grief, saying that all he has done is to take these Polish devotions and force them on the whole world. He explains that the very reason why he brought these devotions to the whole Church was because in the face of all the horrors of Word War II, and in the face of all the sinfulness in this society in which we live, that there has never been a time when mercy was more necessary. There has never been a time when people had more of a purpose and a need to call out to God for mercy. And I can tell you from personal experience that there are many, many people who have come back to the Church because of a devotion to Divine Mercy. The number of people who have come to Confession, who have converted, who have told me that the very reason why they came back to the Church was through the praying of the Divine Mercy Chaplet is great. It is a very powerful thing.
This mercy is what Pope John Paul was all about. We need to recognize the mercy of God that has been extended to us and to the whole world in the person of Pope John Paul II. For over 26 years, this astounding man shepherded the Church. For many of us, we hardly even remember any other pope. For the young people, they have never known another pope. This man is the third longest-reigning pope in history, and he is without doubt one of the most extraordinary human beings ever to have walked the face of the earth. The newscasts are telling us that he is certainly one of the most influential people of the 20th century. But if they cannot see beyond the 20th century, they have a problem.
The man was absolutely brilliant. When he was elected to the papacy, he spoke 26 languages and dialects. English was considered his eighth-best language, and he spoke it quite fluently. When he became Pope, he learned many other languages so that he could preach to people in their own language. This man was so prolific in his writing that the theologians are telling us it will take more than a century just to be able to work through all the things John Paul II has written. The tragedy for many of us is that so many have never read much of anything that he has written. But this man was so prolific in his work that it could only be the work of the Holy Spirit. With the schedule that he kept, how he was able to continue to write thousands upon thousands of pages is not explainable in human terms. How a man who was not well health-wise could continue to maintain the kind of schedule that he did is not explainable in human terms.
We have to understand that we have been in the presence of a saint. I truly believe that it is not going to be long before this man will be canonized. I also firmly believe that history is going to know him as John Paul the Great. There are only two popes in history who have the title “The Great,” and I think that we have had the privilege of living in the presence of the third. He truly is one of the most extraordinary human beings in history, and he has defined history in our day in such a profound way.
Certainly, he had his detractors. It is interesting when you listen to what it is they did not like, it was the simple truth. It was not John Paul so much whom they hated, it was the One for Whom he was the Vicar. It was Jesus Christ and His Church that they were opposed to. And no matter how much the people clamored, our Holy Father would not waffle when it came to the truth. This man, in over 26 years, went on over 100 apostolic “pilgrimages,” shall we call them. He brought Jesus Christ to the world. If you listen to his detractors, you would think that this is some old man who is completely out of touch, who does not get it – “He cannot relate to average people.” Yet, this is a man who, when he came to America, over 500,000 young people came to see; many, many times more than the hippies at Woodstock that we always hear about.
The young people began a chant: “John Paul II, we love you!” Over and over and over they would sing it. If you watch the videotape of that, our Holy Father, when they finally ended, lifted his head with a huge smile and he chanted back: “John Paul II, he loves you!” The young people erupted in applause. When he went to the Philippines, 7 million people came to see him. That is more than any human being in human history in one place. Millions and millions of young people through the World Youth Days have been touched by this man, whom his detractors tell us is out of touch.
In the Gospel reading today, Our Lord told His apostles that as He had been sent so now He was sending them. Pope John Paul II understood what it meant to be an apostle. The word apostle means “to be sent” or “one who is sent.” He went out and he preached Jesus Christ. We have been so blessed by God to have lived in the presence of a saint, and we need to understand the mercy that God has extended to us in this way. He was truly a man for our time. When we look at what he has accomplished, God always raises saints to be able to defend the areas that Satan is attacking. As I have told you many, many times, the area of attack today is on marriage and the family. In the official teaching of the Church, there are approximately 6,000 pages written about marriage in over 2,000 years. Three thousand of those pages were written by Pope John Paul II, the saint that God raised up to be able to defend the area Satan was attacking. His teachings on marriage are only beginning now to be understood and to be promulgated.
They are among the most beautiful things that I have ever in my life read, extraordinary teachings. When we think about our Holy Father and the effect that he has had, I think we can truly say that perhaps the only person that has had more effect than him is Our Lord Himself. Living in a world that is more populated than ever before, he has been able to touch the hearts of the people, with a charismatic personality that when one was in his presence they could not help but to be changed. When people look back over his pontificate over history, one of the things they will undoubtedly say about him negatively is that he should have been more strong as far as discipline goes. But we have to remember that this was a man who was raised up under Communism, and he learned that the way he had to work was to try to keep the flock together. What he tried desperately to do was to make sure he did not ostracize anyone for fear that they would take others away with them. He tried to keep everyone together, and, through love, to bring them to the truth. Love is truly what this man was about. That is what the young people saw.
What we have seen over these last few years of his pontificate is the example of what it is to carry the cross, to follow Jesus to Calvary. We have seen that the man who brought mercy to the world through this devotion to Divine Mercy has also shown us how to live it. As I mentioned earlier, mercy does not come without a cost. It is freely given to anyone who asks, yet for those who are going to pray for mercy for others, they need to share in the work that brought mercy to the world. For those who have prayed the Novena of Divine Mercy over the last nine days, you know the people for whom you were praying, not only the lukewarm or those who do not know the Lord, but even for those who are part of the Mystical Body already. We pray for mercy for each of them. If we are going to pray that people will come to Christ, if we are going to pray that people will be converted and that their lives will be touched, then we have to share in the work of mercy, and mercy was obtained for us on the Cross. Recall the words of our Holy Father back several years ago when some of his detractors were trying to tell us that he was too sick to carry on, that his health was so bad that he needed to resign, he said simply, “Jesus Christ did not come down from His Cross, and I will not come down from mine.”
Right to the very last minute, he refused to come down from his cross and he refused to stop working. In the last day of his life, he appointed new cardinals and new bishops throughout the world, 29 new cardinals who will be part of the new election of the next pope. At the very end, with thousands of pilgrims gathered outside his window, he was able to say to them, “I have gone out to you; now you have come to me. And I thank you.” Truly the heart of a shepherd. He has gone out to his sheep and he has called them, and they came to him. As soon as the word went out in Rome that he was dying, the people took to the streets, hundreds of thousands of people, so much that they had to block the streets and start turning people away because they could not handle the crowds who came to a man who was supposedly out of touch, to an old man from Poland who did not understand what life was really all about.
I tell you, this man understood far better than any of us – and all of us combined – what it was all about. Our Holy Father was completely devoted to Our Lord, to His Mother, and to the people entrusted to his care. We have had the privilege to live in the presence of a saint, and we have to thank God for that. He has gone forth now to his reward, a well-deserved reward, I might say. He has broken through the veil of death. Refusing to get off the cross, he has now entered into death with Christ. And he has now gone forth to see the two people whom he loved more than anyone, and that is Our Lord and His Blessed Mother.
We must pray for him, but we can be guaranteed that as the good shepherd of his flock he continues to pray for us. So we pray that the Church will very soon recognize the sanctity of this man and elevate him to be a saint. In the meantime, as we pray for him and remember the chant of the young people to this incredible man, to one of the most extraordinary human beings to ever walk the face of the earth, our love pours out for him, and yet at the same time our heart calls out to our shepherd: “Holy Father, pray for us to God.”
Editor’s note: Our Holy Father’s death at 9:37 p.m. (Roman time) on Saturday, April 2, occurred on two important liturgical occasions: First Saturday, in fulfillment of his extraordinary devotion to Our Lady; and the Feast of Divine Mercy, in fulfillment of his role in promulgating the devotion to Our Lord’s Divine Mercy. Just before his death, the Vigil Mass of Divine Mercy was celebrated in his room.
Let us thank God for His wonderful Providence in providing such a fitting end to a most beautiful and holy life.
This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.
DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY HOMILIES PING!
Thank you for these. Divine Mercy Sunday is so important... Not enough Priest talk about this wonderful gift -- barely a mention.