Divine Mercy Sunday:
Mercy is God’s greatest attribute
Homily of
Cardinal Justin Rigali
Mass for the Second Sunday of Easter or Divine Mercy Sunday
Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul
March 30, 2008
Dear Friends in our Lord Jesus Christ,
How joyful it is for us to be gathered in this Cathedral Basilica, like
the Apostles in the Upper Room, to experience and to celebrate the Resurrection
of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the mercy of God. With exultation,
we say with Saint Peter: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pt 1:3).
On this Second Sunday of Easter, we particularly rejoice in the gift of
Divine Mercy, the Mercy which is revealed in the Passion, Death and Resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
Today, it is appropriate to recall that the Servant of God Pope John Paul
II, in his encyclical Dives in Misericordia, described mercy as God’s
greatest attribute. In the encyclical, Pope John Paul II reminds us of
the grandeur of the mystery of the invisible God, who “dwells in
unapproachable light” (no. 2). While He makes Himself known in the
splendor and beauty of creation, God is only fully revealed in Jesus Christ.
“In Christ and through Christ, God also becomes visible in His mercy....
Not only does he speak of it and explain it by the use of comparisons
and parables, but above all he himself makes it incarnate and personifies
it. He himself, in a certain sense, is mercy” (no. 2). In Christ,
we see then how close God is to the human family, “especially when
man is suffering, when he is under threat at the very heart of his existence
and dignity” (no. 2).
Throughout the sacred season of Lent, during Holy Week, in the Easter
Triduum, and in celebrating the Octave of Easter, the Church contemplates
the nearness of Jesus to the human family. We reflect on all that Jesus
endured for us—the depths of His love for us as revealed in His
sorrowful Passion and Death—and in the hope bestowed upon us in
the triumph of the Resurrection. All of this was endured by the Sinless
One so that we who are sinners might know the boundless love of God and
the lengths to which God will go to reveal to us His mercy and to draw
us to Himself.
Saint John the Evangelist describes for us in beautiful detail the events
of Easter Sunday evening when, in the Upper Room crowded with the disciples
in the midst of their heartache and confusion, Jesus appeared. Grief-stricken
by the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus, ashamed at their abandonment of
Jesus in his hour of need, the Apostles rightly might have expected from
Jesus a severe reprimand. Instead, Jesus greeted them with a message of
“Peace,” revealed the wounds in his hands, feet and side,
breathed upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit, and bestowed upon His
Church the Easter gift of the Sacrament of Penance, the sacrament through
which the mercy of God is bestowed upon us sinners. At that moment, Jesus
proclaimed that, just as He had redeemed all people, acting through his
sacred humanity which was handed over to death for the redemption of the
world, so He would continue to bestow His Easter gift of pardon and peace,
through the humanity of His Apostles, as well as their successors, the
Bishops, and the priests who collaborate in the ministry of Bishops, through
the Sacrament of Penance. Thus, the great mercy of God continues to be
available through the ministry of the Church. For that reason, I thank
my brother priests present today, and those in all of the parishes of
the Archdiocese, who so faithfully minister to God’s people in the
Sacrament of Penance.
It is fitting that this Octave Day of Easter emphasizes the gift of Divine
Mercy, the mercy entrusted by Jesus to His Church. Our presence here today
also is a testimony to the efforts of the messenger of Divine Mercy, Saint
Faustina Kowalska, a young nun, who in early twentieth-century Poland,
experienced a revelation of Divine Mercy and was given the task to promote
this devotion. Saint Faustina was called by God to announce to our modern
world that the love of Christ is a forgiving love, a merciful love. This
message is consistent with revelation. God chose Saint Faustina as an
instrument to remind our modern world of what the Church has proclaimed
for 2,000 years. We consider prayerfully this message in our recitation
of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, a powerful petition to our Heavenly Father
to pour out abundantly that mercy which Jesus won for us by His Passion.
Furthermore, Saint Faustina related the desire of Jesus that we place
our trust in Him. The image of Divine Mercy is signed with the words,
Jesus, I trust in you! The Diary of Saint Faustina offers details of a
very moving dialogue between Jesus and Saint Faustina. Jesus acknowledges
that Faustina has given so much to Him: her life, her love, her good works
and her efforts to be holy. However, Jesus indicates to Faustina that
there is something which she has not yet given to Him. When Faustina questions
what this is, Jesus responds in effect: “You have not given me what
is so peculiarly and specifically your own. You must entrust your weakness
and sinfulness to my mercy.” Jesus does not ask for our sins; He
asks for us to entrust our lives as they are to His great mercy. He desires
that we renounce sin, but also to be convinced that His mercy has the
power to obliterate all our sins, that His Blood is able to wash away
all our sins. Jesus truly wants us to trust in Him!
In today’s Gospel passage, Saint John the Evangelist admits us to
the Upper Room on the eighth day after that first Easter. We recall that,
on Easter Sunday, Thomas the Apostle was not present. We are told that
Thomas refused to believe that Jesus rose from the dead until he could
see for himself and touch the wounds in the risen body of Christ. When
Jesus appears to Thomas, the moment is sublime. He invites Thomas to touch
His wounds: “Do not be unbelieving, but believe” (Jn 20:27).
Thomas then makes an act of faith which is at the very core of the Easter
mystery as he declares Jesus “my Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28).
“By means of touch and the sharing of a meal,” states the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, “the risen Jesus establishes direct
contact with his disciples. He invites them in this way to recognize that
he is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which
he appears to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified,
for it still bears the traces of his passion” (CCC, 645).
At this Mass, we encounter the same Risen Jesus, wounded for our sins
yet victorious over sin and death. He comes to us in the Holy Eucharist,
and in our “Amen” we declare with Saint Thomas that Jesus
in the Eucharist is “my Lord and my God.” As we kneel in adoration
before our Eucharistic Lord, we contemplate those glorious wounds which
forever are trophies of the victory of Divine Mercy. In our prayerful
recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, we implore the grace to be truly
grateful for the gift of mercy; we beg the grace of a genuine trust in
the mercy of God, and we intercede that the entire world, one soul at
a time, may be transformed by the mercy of God. As we are told in the
Acts of the Apostles: “And every day the Lord added to their number
those who were being saved” (Acts 2: 47).
Like Saint Faustina, we live in a world troubled by darkness, violence
and sin. Jesus invites each of us, by means of His sacraments and by devotion
to His mercy, to draw others to trust in Him. The task seems enormous
and we seem so insignificant. Yet, the power we possess is from Jesus
Himself and it is the ability to intercede for the world. Pray for the
conversion of sinners! Pray for peace in the world! Pray for that abiding
trust which enables us to place at the pierced feet of Jesus all of our
weakness and sinfulness. Confident in His mercy, we can tell everyone
about the transforming gift of Divine Mercy.
Jesus, I trust in you! Amen.