GOSPEL COMMENTARY JN 20:
19-31
In every season of the church’s liturgical year, we are compelled
by the love of God to proclaim boldly God’s mercy. We do not focus only on
God’s burning desire to forgive us during the preparatory seasons of Advent and
Lent, but also during the seasons of Christmas and Easter.
In 2001, Pope John Paul II designated the Second Sunday of Easter
to be Divine Mercy Sunday. One critical part of his motivation was the humble
life and powerful mission of St. Faustina Kowalska. The Lord appeared to this
unassuming nun numerous times in Poland during the 1930s. He spoke to her about
his consuming desire to extend to every corner of the earth his healing
forgiveness and asked her to be a champion of his divine mercy flowing
profusely from his pierced heart.
Jesus said to St. Faustina: “The greater the sinner, the greater
the right he has to My mercy” (723). “Souls that make an appeal to my mercy
delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot
punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion” (1146).
The devotion to Divine Mercy is a wonderful invitation to trust
completely in Jesus. “I have opened My Heart as a living fountain of mercy. Let
all souls draw life from it. Let them approach this sea of mercy with great
trust” (1520). Devotion to Divine Mercy is also an appeal to extend mercy to
others: “If a soul does not exercise mercy in some way, it will not obtain
mercy on the day of judgment” (1317).
A second critical motivation that Pope John Paul II had for the
new name and focus of the Second Sunday of Easter is today’s Gospel, when Jesus
commissions the church with his mission of mercy and provides a clear and
definitive ministry of mercy to the bishops and priests. On Easter Sunday
night, Our Lord appeared to the Twelve and commissioned them: “As the Father
has sent me, so I send you … Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive
are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” We see this event
as an essential moment in Jesus’ institution of the sacrament of confession.
I would like to turn to another wonderful grace of the resurrection
— the proven love of Christ that calms our fears. Jesus and his perfect love,
made manifest in the resurrection, cast out fear from our lives. When Jesus
appears to the apostles in the upper room, John the Evangelist notes that the
doors were locked for “fear of the Jews.” Consequently, Our Lord greets the apostles
three times during his two visits to the upper room with: “Peace be with you.”
In our first reading for today, Our Lord appears to John the
Evangelist in a vision while he was exiled on the Island of Patmos. St. John
recounts, “He touched me with his right hand and said, ‘Do not be afraid, I am
the first and the last, the one who lives.’”
The risen Jesus calms our fears. The risen Jesus demonstrates
that God is faithful to all of his promises. The empty tomb proclaims that God
loves us with a love beyond all telling. The resurrection manifests Jesus’
power over sin, Satan and death. The risen Jesus is now able to be wonderfully
present to us, as he promised, until the end of the ages. The risen Jesus
opened up the gates of heaven to those who believe in him. Earth’s trials and
crosses do not have the final say in life. Our Lord’s appearances to his
disciples confirm the fact that God desires to be in an intimate relationship
of love and life for all eternity with each and every one of us.
With the risen Lord in our boat, we do not need to fear life’s
powerful storms.
Fr. Peterson is director of mission and
development for the Youth Apostles.