Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday)

Dominica in Pasqua II
Divine Mercy Sunday
7 April 2024

 In my homily for the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday I suggested that our “Alleluia” returns in this season and is joyful precisely because, if we have used Lent well, when the “alleluia” is suppressed, then we have confronted the reality of our own sins and the sinfulness in mankind’s history.  This admission of our guilt can serve to make us more aware of what God has done for us in saving us.  And thus, it makes us more grateful and joyful in signing out “Alleluia” in this season of the resurrection.  Praise the Lord for his salvation in Jesus Christ!

At the root of mankind’s state and status is a pride that grasps for more and grasps to touch and to possess the place that properly belongs to God.  This is the lesson of Adam and Eve and their disobedience in grasping for the fruit of the tree that the serpent told them would make them like God (Gen. 3:5).  They desired the place and the knowledge and the power of the Godhead, and so they took the fruit of that tree and brought condemnation upon themselves and upon all of us who inherit that fallen nature, which is still inclined to sinfulness and unholy desires.

By Original Sin and our own personal sins we deserve condemnation.  We actually acknowledge that at the start of each Holy Mass when we call to mind our sins and ask God’s mercy, before we ascend the mountain, so to speak, of worship at Holy Mass.  When we call to mind our sins we are not merely calling to mind “struggles” or “mistakes” or “weaknesses” or some such vague language.  No, we are calling to mind our sinful choices and our guilt.  We are calling to mind that we deserve condemnation.  We call to mind everything that reflects sin in our lives.  Each one of us says, “I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done (the evil I have done) and in what I have failed to do (the good I have failed to do), through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”.

Yes, as we recall God’s mercy we have many reasons to be thankful and to be filled with joy as we say alleluia, because we are aware of those sins from which we have been saved.  The apostles and disciples, the first Christians, faced condemnation for their own sins and they faced a world locked in death, when they experienced the Good News of the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus.  They knew the Lord’s resurrection to be a great victory of joy and hope.  And they knew they were called to live that victory.  Thus, the second reading had St. John proclaiming that belief when it said, “the victory that conquers the world is our faith”.  The disciples went out into the midst of a world whose mentality and vision was still very much locked in human power and the hopelessness of condemnation.  As the first reading showed, the disciples went out into that world and they lived differently.  They had different teachings.  They had different practices.  They were of one heart and mind, and with power they bore witness to the resurrection.

Do you acknowledge the drama of salvation and God’s generous mercy in your life?  Are you aware of sin in your life such that you can live the joy of Christ’s victory for you?  Are you ready to be like the first disciples and to go into the midst of the world and live differently?  Do you know it to be your mission, too, to bear witness to the resurrection of Jesus and to proclaim that the victory that conquers the world is our faith?  We are supposed to render that kind of evangelical service to the world.  For though we have been redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus, the world is still ensnared by that mentality and vision of grasping and possessing the place, and the knowledge, and the power that belongs properly to God.  In so doing, those who adopt a worldly way of thinking and acting dismiss the free gift of salvation from God, so busy are they grasping things for themselves and by their own power.

Yes, the world is ensnared by the mentality and vision of its own false god.  Do you ever consider why so many of the gravest evils of human history, so many of the gravest sins, involve human flesh, both how it is made and its very existence?  It’s because sins against human life, sins against its dignity, and sins against how human flesh is made strikes at the very image of God, who has made human beings male and female and has made us in His image and likeness.  Murder, adultery, pornography, sexual immorality of all kinds, abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, transgender ideology… all these ensnare our world and our contemporaries and they create an atmosphere that threatens to ensnare us.  These sins are like a retelling of the Garden of Eden with the serpent enticing mankind against God, against His very image and likeness.  These sins keep the world and the worldly from acknowledging the victory of our faith.  These things keep souls locked in condemnation and need our witness and our joyful “alleluia”.  We are to be so grateful ourselves for the gift of God’s mercy that we are ready to live differently in the midst of the world, and to be like those first Christians who proclaimed in word and action the victory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ!