Today, the Octave of Easter has
been given the special designation Divine Mercy Sunday by Pope Saint John Paul
II. The Gospel of John celebrates this theme magnificently. As it opens on a
Sunday, Jesus has been killed by the authorities and has been in the tomb since
Friday evening. The disciples have entombed themselves behind the locked doors
of the Upper Room, unable to move, like dead men for fear of the Jews. It seems
to them that all is lost. The man Jesus in whom they had placed all their hopes
has been crucified. Suddenly, in the midst of these seemingly dead men, Jesus
appears with a greeting and message of “Peace.” This is a message completely
contradicting the chaos they feel caught up in. Peace is the tranquility of
order: the divine order. When Jesus perceives the joy in their hearts at
recognizing their Lord, he reiterates his greeting in a way that makes it not
only a greeting but also a commission. “Peace be with you. As the Father has
sent me, so I send you.” He then breathes into them not just life, but the new
life. As God at the First Creation breathed life into Adam, so now at the New
Creation the new Adam, the God-Man Jesus, breathes the new life into his disciples
and so also into all of us who call on the name of Jesus. We all share in the new
life of the Spirit, the breath of God, through the glorious resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead.
For many of us, the experience of
God's mercy in raising us up to the new life in the Spirit comes in a way that
more resembles that of St. Thomas, the Apostle, who hadn't made it back to the
Upper Room in time. At the Last Supper Thomas had asked Jesus about the way
Jesus was going. Jesus replied that He himself is the Way, the Truth, and the
Life. Perhaps Thomas in his despair was lost in the thought that Jesus had
turned out to be nothing but a dead end. His misery would eventually bring him
back to his brothers' company, at least. St. Thomas and our father St. Bernard
had much in common, especially the need for Divine Mercy. St. Bernard's
doctrine of Divine Mercy Misericordia being attracted to our misery miseria was one that we tended to forget in later centuries of Jansenism. In a sermon
to his monks, Bernard realistically describes himself as follows: “burdened
with sins, enveloped in darkness, enslaved to pleasure, tormented with desires,
dominated by passions, filled with delusions, always prone to evil, easily
accessible to every vice, in a word, full of all shame and confusion.” We
should not dismiss this as humble self-deprecation---this is what Bernard had
discovered about himself in faithfulness to the admonition “know thyself.” The
wonder of it all is that Bernard then discovered that in the light of God's
grace, he could have mercy upon himself, as it were. This, in turn, inspired him
to have mercy on all his brothers in their misery. And this opened him even more
to a knowledge of the Father of Mercies. He discovered that Mercy's natural home
is our misery. That is the destination to which it rushes like the wind, like
the breath of God.
In the sixty-first sermon on the
Song of Songs, Bernard parallels his own experience of God's mercy with that of
the apostle, Thomas—Thomas who is told by Jesus, “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.” Bernard writes, “But as for me, whatever is lacking
in my own resources I appropriate for myself from the heart of the Lord, which
overflows with mercy. And there is no lack of clefts by which they are poured
out. They pierced His hands and his feet; they gored his side with a lance. And
through these fissures, I can suck honey from the rock... I can taste and see
that the Lord is good. The nail that pierced him has become for me a key
unlocking the sight of the Lord's will. Why should I not gaze through the
cleft? The nail wound cries out that God is truly in Christ, reconciling the
world to himself. The iron lance pierced his soul, and his heart has drawn
near so that he is no longer one who cannot sympathize with my weaknesses. The
secret of his heart is laid open...that mighty mystery of loving is laid open,
laid open to the tender mercies of our God...Where more clearly than in your
wounds does the evidence shine that you, Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in steadfast love? No one shows greater mercy than he who lays down
his life for those who are judged and condemned. My merit, therefore, is the
mercy of the Lord.”
We now approach the Eucharist, the
sacrament of the Lord's mercy poured out for us for the forgiveness of our
sins. Having encountered Divine Mercy in the sacrament, may we have mercy on
all we encounter in our ordinary, obscure, and laborious lives. I would like to
close with the final words of St. John Paul II's homily at the canonization of
Sr. Faustina. He writes, “the message of divine mercy is also a message about
the value of every human being. Each person is precious in God's eyes; Christ
gave his life for each one; to everyone the Father gives his Spirit and offers
intimacy. This consoling message is addressed above all to those who, afflicted
by a particularly harsh trial or crushed by the weight of the sins they committed,
have lost all confidence in life and are tempted to give in to despair. To them
the gentle face of Christ is offered; those rays from his heart touch them and shine
upon them, warm them, show them the way and fill them with hope. How many souls
have been consoled by the prayer, 'Jesus, I trust in you!'”
Photograph of the weeping cherry outside the Abbey reception room by Charles O'Connor. Today's homily by Father Luke.
