As soon as the risen Jesus appears to his disciples, he said to them, “Peace be with you.” At the top of his list of priorities, that is his prayer for us as well. “Peace be with you.” For some people, that seems like an illusion. Division, rather than peace is common in many communities today unlike in the first faith community we heard about in Acts. Differences of opinion on what is right and what is wrong prevail. That can lead us to act like doubting Thomas, not so much doubting the existence of the risen Lord, but doubting what he expects of us.
The absence of peace originates with some manner of conflict, the consequence of ignoring God’s commandments. When that happens, the need for forgiveness arises and at times, that can be a rather tall order to fill, yet when we refuse to forgive, inner peace cannot be realized. Think of what goes on within you when you refuse to forgive. When you are hurt or angry due to another person’s offense, instead of saying, “Peace be with you,” to the offender, you are fuming, plotting ill will, or thinking of ways to get even. These tensions, building up within you, leave you unable to experience peace of any kind. So that peace could be experienced, Jesus breathed on the disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
We as Church see this as the scriptural origin of the sacrament of reconciliation. Jesus gave to the disciples and their successors the means to make God’s forgiveness very real, to enable us with words of absolution to experience God’s divine mercy. But this isn’t the only way we can experience forgiveness. We can also experience God’s mercy and forgiveness for our not so serious sins by receiving Eucharist. Just before receiving the body and blood of our risen Lord, we pray that the Lord will heal our souls. In the anointing of the sick, the prayer is offered that the sins of the recipient will be forgiven.
We are sinners by birth and by choice. That is a consequence of our free will. This means that at times we are estranged from God and others, thus destined for eternal punishment. But that isn’t the destiny Jesus wants for us. Rising from the dead, he destroyed death forever and ever since, he has sought to extend his divine mercy to those who have come to believe that he is the Christ, the son of God.
What matters is that a Christian feels forgiven and is forgiven. Nothing robs us more of the Easter peace and joy Jesus intended for us than sin and guilt and the sadness and hurt they bring. Forgiveness requires sorrow, but it also takes faith that Jesus cares about us and every aspect of our lives.
The world is full of doubting Thomases. In fact, there is a bit of Thomas in each of us and that can be good, provided we let our doubt be a catalyst to better understand the source of our doubt, in this case, belief in the risen Christ and his timeless message of mercy. Thomas was absent the first time Jesus appeared to the disciples. He had every reason to be skeptical about what they had seen. However all that disappeared once Jesus invited him to touch him. “Do not be unbelieving but believe!” Jesus went on to say, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” Blessed then are we who haven’t seen the risen Jesus with our own eyes yet gather here because we believe in all that he stands for.
What motivates the vast majority of Christians to believe in Jesus is his promised gift of salvation. If faith in Jesus is seen primarily as a means of assuring entrance into heaven, that turns religion into a self-seeking endeavor, a concept that is at odds with the example and teaching of Jesus and the early Church.
Read the gospels and you will see that Jesus didn’t woo disciples with promises of heaven or relief from eternal misery. Instead, he kept inviting his disciples to follow his example. Repeatedly he speaks of the kingdom of God, not as a future destiny, but as a reality that can be encountered here and now, provided we follow his teachings, such as the mandate he gives us in the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” a reminder that we too can choose to forgive or not forgive.
Jesus reveals himself to the disciples not for the sake of proving that he has risen from the dead but to show them that building the kingdom is still in progress and that he needed them and future generations to carry on his mission. The Church is what it is today because countless generations of disciples continued to carry on his mission of making God’s mercy real to others.
Twelve years ago, Pope John Paul II named this day Divine Mercy Sunday. This feast came at the urging of St, Maria Faustina, a Polish nun and visionary who kept a diary during her short lifetime which recounted hundreds of revelations about God’s mercy. She knew what it felt like to be away from God and how it felt to be close to God. At one point Jesus told her, “I will pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of my mercy. Let no one fear to draw near to me, even though their sins be as scarlet.” If you want to learn more about this, read this Sunday’s reflection in the latest issue of The Word Among Us.
The reflection closes with this invitation, “Today of all days, don’t be afraid to draw near to the Lord. You may suffer trials, you may struggle against temptation, or you may fall into sin. But don’t worry. As St. Peter tells us, we may not see God now, but we can still rejoice because Jesus has done everything necessary to save us. That’s how merciful he is. So celebrate his mercy today—by receiving it!” Christians have done this since the first Easter. Follow their example and experience the Lord’s gift of peace.