It is 11th April, 2021. We celebrate the Second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday.
The readings are from Acts 4, 32-35; the second reading is from 1 John 5, 1-6; and the Gospel from John 20:19-31.
The Divine Mercy Sunday blends all the mysteries and graces of the Holy Week and Easter week that bring the light of the Risen Lord as merciful love and grace for all of us. His mercy is everlasting and tender to the entire humankind. The floodgates of mercy flows from the Heart the Risen Lord bring peace and we do not need to fear coming closer the Merciful Saviour.
A scientist was on a trip in an aeroplane. It was a long journey. After long hours of flying, the pilot announced that they are encountering a turbulence and so they will not serve any drinks, and all needed to fasten their seat belts. The passengers were not at ease at the announcement. After a while again there was another announcement, there was serious storm breaking out and so the food will not be served and to fasten the seatbelts. The scientist looked around to see the passengers were panicking, scared and some started to pray as the aeroplane was tossed and dropped as it were about to crash. But he noticed a young girl seated so calm and cool as if nothing happened all through out the storms and turbulence reading a book, stretching her legs, and playing with toys. The plane landed safe as the passengers were hurried to disembark, he stopped to enquire the little girl how could she remained cool, peace and unafraid. The child replied, “Sir, my Dad is the pilot, and he is taking me home.”
Faith is a complete sharing for the welfare of the other. We cannot encounter the risen Christ without encountering Him in the community. It is not an individual affair, but it has a communitarian connection as we listened in the first reading. “There was not a needy person among them.” As long as there are poor and the needy amidst us in our communities, we have not understood the profound meaning of the Resurrection. Our encountering with the risen Lord happens in a believing family, and community circle. Where there is faith in the risen Lord, there is a sharing from the heart of love. Sharing and believing cannot be separated and they co-exist. In the absence of sharing, believing is under question. When we live a life of love, respect, tolerance, and having a sense of common good, we grow and surrender in faith.
Believing means belonging. We gather week after week to celebrate the mysterious of the Lord in the Eucharist in faith that strengthens fibres of faith in others. Showing up and sharing our faith is believing indeed. Without belief, we cannot belong whether in a family or a community. We believe together. When we leave the community, and family, we lose the bonding of faith with one another. Community of faith cannot be replaced or substituted by individual faith even though faith of an individual could enhance the community. Some of us do not care in what we believe because we believe anything and everything under the pretext of simplicity of innocence. Some others are satisfied as numbers in the community without active sharing and participating.
The responsorial Psalm praises, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love is everlasting.” (Ps.118:1).
Faith in the risen Lord is a surrender. St. Thomas is the example for that from today’s Gospel. In today’s Gospel, the disciples are gathered in a locked room out of fear and insecurity. Love and mercy of the risen Lord surrounds them in His person and greeted them with peace. They were filled with joy. Mercy and love bring peace and joy in all who encounter the risen Lord. For John, Easter Sunday is the Pentecost. Thomas was missing in the community of the disciples when Jesus appeared to them and he refused to believe. When we are far from our community, and family we have the difficulty in believing in the presence of the Lord. For Thomas, belonging to the community was next to honesty that made him to doubt. When St. Thomas re-joined the community of disciples, the risen Lord reappeared to Him and strengthen his faith. Jesus appeared to them all not privately to St. Thomas alone. We too struggle like Thomas at times. “Do not doubt but believe. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Thomas stands for all of us who have not seen the Lord and are asked to believe.
Faith is a journey of meeting the risen Lord in others. Faith needs to be nurtured, helped, and matured by times otherwise we end up losing it. We need to care about our faith like Thomas, only then we can strengthen our faith. How strong is our faith when we do not see Him? . Jesus showed His wounds. Do we see the wounds of the poor, and come to their aid?
Seeing extraordinary miracles, signs is not a guarantee of faith. Rather our faith in the risen Lord can open all the doors due to our prejudices, discrimination, and indifference
Faith is to suffer willingly without complaining. St. John Paul II died 2nd April 2005. He shepherded the Church 27 years, the most travelled Pope who cheated death several times. He escaped an attempt of assassination in 1981. He had colon cancer 1992; he suffered should and hip injuries in 1992 and 1993, his appendix was removed 1996; he developed Parkinson’s disease in 2001 and towards the end of his life, he was in a pool of pain yet manifested extraordinary serenity. During an interview one reporter asked, “Holy Father, kindly excuse me for being bold. You are aged, your hands are shaking due to Parkinson, your voice is feeble, you find difficult to walk and you are suffering and incapacitated in your work. Why don’t you resign and take res, and way for others to take over? Saintly Pope replied him, “If Jesus had come down from the cross, I too would have resigned. Since, He remained on the cross and suffered, I too, am holding on to my responsibility and am suffering.”
Faith frees us from all fear. When we feel the presence of the person, we love and no longer fear. St. John boldly confesses that “Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:6).
We all need to pray like St. Thomas, “My Lord and My God.” when we have faith in the risen Lord. Thomas Merton wrote in his book Asian Journal, ‘Faith is not the suppression of doubt. It is the overcoming of doubt, and you overcome doubt by going through it. The man of faith who has never experienced doubt is not a person of faith’.
May the Lord help us to encounter the Risen Lord in our community, and in our personal struggles and the sufferings of the poor around. Have a lovely day. God bless you.