Reflection on the Readings at Mass for the 2nd Sunday of Easter – Divine Mercy. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray.
The Liturgy of the Church and Her Sacraments is God Being Merciful with Us
On April 30, 2000, Saint Pope John Paul II canonized Faustina Kowalska, and officially designated the Sunday after Easter as the Sunday of the Divine Mercy in the General Roman Calendar. On the first anniversary of that proclamation Pope John Paul II re-emphasized his message in the resurrection context of Easter, saying: “Jesus said to Sr Faustina one day: “Humanity will never find peace until it turns with trust to Divine Mercy”. Divine Mercy! This is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to humanity.” The feast of Divine Mercy, as recorded in the diary of Saint Faustina, receives from Christ Jesus Himself the promise that the soul that goes to Sacramental Confession, and receive Holy Eucharistic on that day, shall obtain the total forgiveness of all sins and punishment. Additionally, the Catholic Church grants a plenary indulgence (observing the usual rules) with the recitation of some simple prayers.
In response to the Churches call to Jesus’ Divine Mercy, we find in the readings at Mass today three of the most beauty and profound sacred Scriptures that relate to the mercy of God through some of the most essential and most merciful sacraments of our faith, Baptism, Penance & Reconciliation, and the liturgy of the Mass, which is how readings begin in today’s First Reading from Acts 2:42-47, saying, “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common.” The liturgy of Mass is God being merciful with us, and while the principle purpose of the liturgy is to divinize us; to make us holy, the work being done in us is not being done in isolation, but in the communal life, of people who believe coming together to worship and witness. In this way, the liturgy reminds of our natural human disability first witnessed by God in Adam, saying, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him.”1 Similarly, the human nature of the Bride of Christ is like Adam in this way, she was not created for herself, but for a community of believers being made holy. Following the call to holiness is hard enough, but trying to do it alone is probably impossible because we do not have much to learn about ourselves, our goodness, and our faults if our only interactions are with self. Rather, it is through the community of believers that the liturgy brings together in Christ that we learn more about the mercy of God by hearing the testimony and witnessing the work in the lives of those whom He calls His Children.
This journey to communion with Christ and His People begins with our worthy reception of the Sacrament of Baptism, through which we become members of the Body of Christ, through His sacrifice on the Cross and His resurrection. Today’s Second Reading from 1 Peter 1:3-9 says it this way, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.” Truly, God’s greatest work of mercy with us is the Sacrament of Baptism; through which we are not only cleansed of the humanities original sin, made a member of the Body of Christ, receiving the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but, most importantly, given access to the Sacraments of the Healing and Mission through which we continue the journey of sanctification. The Sacrament of Baptism is God being richly merciful with us because Baptism is the one sacrament that truly gives us new birth, and, thereby, makes us citizens of the Kingdom of God.
Yet, His fathomless mercy did not end there. Through the Sacrament of Baptism, not only was our communion with God and His people made possible which had been an impossibility since our father parents were exile from the Garden of Eden, but even more merciful than that was when God made a way for us to never lose those relationships again through the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation that is recapitulated in today’s Gospel reading in John 20:19-31, saying, “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.” God knows we need help, because He dwelt with us and leaving behind the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation is God being merciful with us.
If we were to choose just one word to describe God’s mercy for us, we might choose the word, ‘truth,’ because in every way and every time that God deigns to demonstrate to us how much He loves us, He encounters us; He communes with us so that we might know the truth, so that we might be free, and for this reason He sent us the Holy Spirit to dwell with us to guide us towards all truth, and for this reason we have all trust in Him, because He can never lie us and never lead us to perdition. His liturgy and His Sacraments are proof of that.
This is just one way how the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
