Jesus is ‘the Face of the Father’s Mercy
Over a quarter of a million people from all walks of life gathered in St Peter’s Square yesterday to bid their final farewell to Pope Francis at his Requiem Mass. It was reminiscent of the huge crowds that gathered for his general audiences and other major events during his pontificate. Images of him blessing the sick, greeting pilgrims and kissing babies are still fresh in our minds. Much like the people gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on them, the Successor of St Peter has drawn crowds during his pontificate. Pope Francis has been a pope for the people, a parish priest for the entire world.
The Gospel this Sunday might find us in different places. Perhaps, like the disciples at the beginning of today’s Gospel we are locked in fear and confusion. Perhaps we are daring to believe and there is joy in that, but there are nagging doubts? Perhaps we have wounds which make it possible for us to identify with the wounds of Jesus? If any of these scenarios describe us, then we are in good company with the disciples as they are shown to us in the Gospel for today. As Jesus meets the disciples in the situation they are in, where they are at, he meets us this Sunday.
The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles gives us an image of the early Church in those days following the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. From being terrified and locked away in a room for fear that they too would be executed, the apostles went out and spread the message of the risen Christ all over the known world.
The core message of the preaching of the apostles was the resurrection of Jesus. They were obsessed with it. More than that, it is significant that all except one of the apostles suffered a cruel death for believing in and preaching Jesus risen from the dead. The other, St John, was imprisoned for life on the island of Patmos, as we hear in the second reading from the Book of Revelation.
Imagine if we could have something of the drive and inspiration of the apostles. Imagine if we could be resurrection people like these apostles. The message of the resurrection should permeate our lives and dreams. Easter is something that must be done to us, transforming us from the inside out. As St John Paul said, “We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.”
The magnificent Gospel story for today tells us that the disciples were behind locked doors because they were afraid, and Jesus came and stood among them, saying, “Peace be with you.” It is like the vision of John in the second reading from Revelation. John says that out of fear he fell down as though dead, but Jesus said to him, “Do not be afraid.”
And as the risen Jesus came and stood among the disciples, he can come and appear behind the locked doors of fear in our lives. Apparently, the phrase, “Do not be afraid,” appears 365 times in the Bible, frequently on the lips of Jesus. There is something in that for us. It is as if we have so much in our lives that can cause us to be afraid, enough for every day of the year, and to match this the Gospel message is, “Do not be afraid; Peace be with you.”
The Risen Jesus is with us. As he said to the disciples, he says to us, “Peace be with you.” What fears are in the background of our lives, that affect our well-being and joy? What wounds do we carry that need to be identified with the wounds of Jesus? This Easter, the ‘Peace be with you’ of Jesus is offered to us.
Let’s face it; it is hard for us to take onboard the truth of the resurrection and really understand it. There is nothing in our life experience that can help us to grasp the resurrection. For one thing, there was something mysterious and other-worldly about Jesus’ risen body. It was a glorified body, not just an ordinary body brought back to life, and which would have to die again. Nonetheless, even though it was a mysterious, glorified body, there was a physicality about it: The tomb was empty; and Jesus could be touched and seen, and he could eat in front of this disciples.
Because of this we can have some sympathy with the apostles in the Upper Room. Thomas doubted the resurrection of Jesus; in fact, he said that he refused to believe. He is singled out, but he was probably representative of the others. And in their encounter with the risen Christ, their fear and unbelief were met by Jesus’ gift of peace and the Holy Spirit. Into their fear, Jesus gave the gift of peace. And he commissioned them to be missionaries of Easter, giving them the power to forgive sins.
This Gospel event is a good description of our own human experience and engagement with the Resurrection. We might be fearful of giving ourselves over to this truth; we experience weakness in the living the Resurrection truth; we experience scepticism and doubt. And like the disciples, we have the potential to move to an experience of faith in the Resurrection and being empowered by the Holy Spirit to be witnesses.
Perhaps the most magnificent line in the whole of the Bible is prompted by Thomas’ doubt. Jesus invited Thomas to put his finger into the holes that the nails had made in his hands, and his hand into the wound that the spear had made in his side. And Thomas responded with the highest and most profound confession of faith found in the Bible. He says, “My Lord and my God.” As St Augustine said, “St Thomas touched the man and recognised his God”.
As a young boy, Sr John, a Dominican sister who prepared me for First Holy Communion, taught me and my classmates to pray the prayer of St Thomas often, especially when genuflecting before the Blessed Sacrament. It is something I still today, in front of the tabernacle or from behind the altar.
In some parts of the world, the congregation proclaims, “My Lord and my God,” when the host and chalice are elevated during the words of institution. We can all pray this prayer silently, speaking from our hearts.
Don’t you think it is extraordinarily beautiful to consider that the marks of the Passion, the marks of the nails and spear, remain on Jesus’ body even after the Resurrection? Not only do these wounds show continuity of the risen Christ with the Jesus of Nazareth, whom those first disciples had accompanied, but they are the marks of the mercy of God, the wounds of love, extended to us. They reveal that Jesus is forever fixed in the act of love in which he died.
The Church Fathers taught that in the blood and water that flowed from the side of Jesus on the cross, flows the mercy of God, the Divine Mercy. As Jesus stands before the disciples in the Upper Room, and as he is with us this Sunday as we pray, we see that he is God’s mercy to us. He is the Divine Mercy. Remember when Pope Francis proclaimed the Year of Mercy in 2016, he said that Jesus is ‘the Face of the Father’s Mercy.’
As we celebrate Mass today, Jesus is before us, with the wounds of love on his glorified body, and we kneel before him in awe and wonder. With Thomas, say, “My Lord and my God.”
