Sunday Meditation: Have Mercy on Us and on the Whole World

The Second Sunday of Easter has the same readings each year, the passage where St. Thomas the Apostle needs to see and feel Jesus’s wounds to believe. 

 

On the evening of that first day of the week,

when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,

for fear of the Jews,

Jesus came and stood in their midst

and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,

“Receive the Holy Spirit.

Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,

and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,

was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”

But he said to them,

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands

and put my finger into the nailmarks

and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Now a week later his disciples were again inside

and Thomas was with them.

Jesus came, although the doors were locked,

and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he said to Thomas, “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.”

Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

 

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples

that are not written in this book.

But these are written that you may come to believe

that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,

and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

~Jn 20:19-31

I have posted on this passage the last two years.  You can listen to Fr. Geoffrey Plant from two years ago as he connects the “signs” of John’s Gospel to faith.    And last year Fr. Joseph Mary of theFranciscan Capuchins used the dystopia of George Orwell’s 1984 to shed light on Divine Mercy, one of his best homilies.  

This year Bishop Robert Barron walks us through the Gospel reading and connects the it to Divine Mercy Sunday, which Pope St. John Paul II fixed to the Second Sunday of Easter.

The “peace” from Christ is the breath of Divine Mercy!

The pastoral homily comes from Fr. Patrick Briscoe O.P. who connects the reading to our hope for eternal life, and how much we need to accept Divine Mercy.

Alleluia, He is risen!

 

Sunday Meditation: “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

 

Finally, we sung the Divine Mercy Chaplet today at our parish in a special Three O’clock gathering with the exposed Blessed Sacrament.  It was beautiful.  I’m going to provide a YouTube clip of a Divine Mercy Chaplet in song, sung from The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, Stockbridge, MA, USA.

 

I want to also provide a picture of the side display today at my parish, St. Rita’s Catholic Church on Staten Island, NY, of the Divine Mercy painting.  Beside stood our picture of beloved Holy Father, Pope Francis. 

 

May Pope Francis rest in peace.  I will have a memorial post for his passing.