Sunday the 27th of April 2025 - Second Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy Sunday

Acts 5:12-16/ Ps 118(117)/ Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19/ John 20:19-31

What does it take for us to believe something? If we see something with our own eyes then we tend to believe what we have seen. Even the trust in our own vision can be shaken. There are many impressive conjurors around who can deceive our eyes with clever sleight of hand. For legal purposes witnesses and evidence is needed in order to prove that something untoward has occurred. Even then things might not be completely clear leading to court juries unable to make a decision or being split in their interpretation of evidence. There is the definitive truth of what has happened and then there are variations on that truth based on how people have perceived the evidence presented or interpreted what they have seen and heard.

Thomas, often referred to as doubting Thomas, gets a bad press. He was not present when Jesus appeared to the disciples cowering in the locked room. Where had Thomas gone? Was he the only one brave enough to go out and about when his friends and colleagues were in fearful hiding? Putting ourselves in Thomas’ place what would our reaction have been if we had gone out and on returning were told they had seen the Lord? It might be that Thomas did not have a lack of faith in God but doubted his own friends. After all nothing had changed since he had left them in the room, they were still locked away in a state of fear. Thomas might have expected a little more of the bravery later described in the Acts of the Apostles if he was to believe what they told him. Thomas was blunt and direct enough to have challenged Jesus directly. Before his passion and death and as he prepared the disciples for what was to come Jesus had told them he was leaving them and they knew the way to where he was going. It was Thomas who was brave enough to express the thoughts that many of the others may have had when he stated that he did not know the way, prompting Jesus to say, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’. Thomas might have had a lack of faith in his friends rather than in God. Would we have acted any differently given the same circumstances?

Eight days later, when Jesus again appeared among the disciples, Thomas was with them. Jesus offered his hands, feet, and side for Thomas to touch his wounds. On seeing Jesus Thomas saw beyond the physical appearance of the man who had lived as one of them, who had suffered and died on the cross, he saw his Lord and God and made that his defining profession of faith. We can also make that profession our own when the priest raises the consecrated Host at Mass and we pray, ‘My Lord, and my God’.

Thomas did not doubt God but doubted his friends. They were not credible to him in what they said. Nothing appeared to have changed in their behaviour by the appearance of Jesus, his sending them out, his breathing of the Holy Spirit into them. Could it be that they had not yet found the ability to believe even what they saw with their own eyes. This was not to remain the case, before long the power of the Holy Spirit and the belief that Jesus was risen and was the Lord and God they had been promised allowed the disciples the courage to go out and face the world. We know this because we are here today as a direct result of the power of the Holy Spirit that has driven the church down the ages. The passage from the Acts of The Apostles bears witness to how multitudes of people were being drawn to believe in Jesus, who he is, what he achieved right under the noses of the occupying Roman Forces and their own disbelieving religious leaders. All their fear had gone and they had abandoned the security of their locked room as they proclaimed the good news of the risen Lord to the world.

Today is designated Divine Mercy Sunday following the revelations received by Saint Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska of Poland during the 1930’s and recorded in her diaries. The Divine Mercy message is not a new teaching of the church but the revelation of Sister Faustina’s diary sparked a new interest in it and a strong movement within the church focusing on the mercy of Christ available through the sacrament of confession. Canonised by Pope Saint John Paul II in 2000, Sister Faustina became the first saint of the new millennium. We are called to turn to the Mercy of Jesus who is seen walking towards us in the image given to the world by Sister Faustina. Looking at that image of Jesus we can join Thomas in making his declaration our own, My Lord and my God.

Are we a community hidden away in fear or are we one of courage seen out and about living the truth of the resurrection and bringing the risen Lord and God to our world?

God Bless Brendan