Suddenly, this figure, glorious, full of light, comes through those locked doors. It's Jesus! Is it his ghost, they wonder. Has he come back for revenge because of how they treated him?
"Peace be with you," Jesus says, and he shows them his wounded hands and side so that they would know beyond a doubt that he is truly Jesus. No words of anger. No words of reprimand or condemnation. Only words of forgiveness, drawn from the abyss of divine mercy. As Jesus hung on the cross, and a lance opened his side, a fountain of divine mercy flowed out, an ocean of mercy which encircles the world.
Jesus said in a vision to Sr. Faustina that his mercy waits for all souls - no one is excluded. No one? Do you realize that many great saints have prayed that even Judas, in the last moments of his life, asked for forgiveness and was drenched in the beautiful mercy of God? The greater the misery of a soul, the greater its right to God's mercy.
After Jesus offers the apostles "Peace" once again - does he want to make sure they have truly heard him and grasped his message? - he says "as the Father has sent me, so I send you." He breathes on them and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men's sins, they are forgiven them." For Catholics, this is Jesus' institution of the priesthood, and the gift of the power of the Holy Spirit to stand in Jesus' stead and forgive sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
But Jesus' message is broader, wider, deeper, than that. Later we'll hear in the Letter of James (5:16) "Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed." All Christians are asked by God to be humble and confess our sins out loud to someone else - perhaps a spouse, child, parent, or friend, whom we have sinned against, and also to the specific work of mercy of forgiving others who have sinned against us.
God's divine mercy for us is mysterious, unfathomable. God promises to bring all things to the good for us, even our sins! Yes, God uses even our sins because our sins teach us how much we need God. If we use the sins we have repented of as lessons, we learn humility and experience a greater love for the God Who has mercy on us and forgives us!
Julian of Norwich (1342- 1416) was an English hermit, mystic, and theologian, whose published book "Revelations of Divine Love," was the first book written in English by a woman. She described God's using even our sins to teach us and help us grow:
This is also true for us. No one among us can truly forgive others from the heart unless we have first learned humility and forgiveness from the story of our own sins and experience of God's merciful forgiveness.
Pope Francis teaches us about the many qualities of mercy. First he teaches us that true mercy never condemns others.
"I think we too are the people who, on the one hand, want to listen to Jesus, but on the other hand, at times, like to find a stick to beat others with, to condemn others. And Jesus has this message for us: mercy. I think — and I say it with humility — that this is the Lord's most powerful message: mercy."
(Homily on March 17, 2013)
Secondly, Pope Francis teaches us that to truly have mercy and forgive someone includes trying to forget what that person has done to us, to give them a second chance. In other words, true forgivers don't hold grudges, don't bring up the same thing over and over again in arguments. Why? Because once we confess our sins to God, God forgets!
"It is not easy to entrust oneself to God's mercy, because it is an abyss beyond our comprehension. But we must! ... 'Oh, I am a great sinner!' All the better! Go to Jesus: He likes you to tell him these things! He forgets, He has a very special capacity for forgetting. He forgets, He kisses you, He embraces you and He simply says to you: "Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more" (Jn 8:11). (Homily on March 17, 2013)
Third, Pope Francis teaches us that God's face is the face of a patient father. If we yearn to have mercy on others as God has mercy on us, we need to humbly remember how weak we are, how we sin over and over again, and yet God is patient with us. Slowly, over the course of our lifetime, God mercifully forgives us over and over, fills us with grace. Slowly we grow in our capacity to overcome those sins - and to forgive others with God's own mercy.
"Jesus' attitude is striking: we do not hear the words of scorn, we do not hear words of condemnation, but only words of love, of mercy, which are an invitation to conversation. "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again." Ah! Brothers and Sisters, God's face is the face of a merciful father who is always patient. Have you thought about God's patience, the patience He has with each one of us? That is His mercy. He always has patience, patience with us, He understands us, He waits for us, He does not tire of forgiving us if we are able to return to Him with a contrite heart. 'Great is God's mercy,' says the Psalm."(Angelus on March 17, 2013)
The great Good News of Easter is that, in Jesus, God suffered, died, and was buried, and then rose again so that we too could be dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus. In God's great, merciful forgiveness, our sins are forgiven; by the glorious wounds of Jesus, we are healed of sin and given the gift of eternal life. So - God brings all things to the good for us, even our sins. Jesus forgave the apostles, filled them with his peace and the power of the Holy Spirit, and thus brought them face to face with their own weakness and failings to prepare them to mercifully forgive others in Jesus' Name. So God works for us as He did the apostles - even our sins can be lessons which teach us humility and deepen our compassion so that we can forgive others from the heart.
Through God's grace we can grow in our understanding of the depth, the abyss, of God's mercy, and learn to forgive others as God forgives us. The Holy Spirit is with us! In Jesus' Spirit -
- We can grow in never condemning others.
- We can grow in trying to forget what others have done to us, give them anther chance, not bring up their past failings in arguments.
- We can grow in patience, realizing that it takes all of us a lifetime to grow strong enough to overcome our sins.
- And we can grow in our trust of an incredibly merciful God Who promises to bring final victory, to conquer sin throughout the world, to bring us a new heaven and a new earth. As Julian says, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." Because of our Easter joy, our trust in God's mercy, Christians are meant to be optimists in this world. Every day of our lives as we turn to God in prayer, we can hear the resurrected, merciful Jesus say to us in our hearts - "Peace!"
" Help me, O Lord
That my eyes may be merciful, so that I will never be suspicious or judge by appearances, but always look for what is beautiful in my neighbor's souls and be of help to them;
That my ears may be merciful, so that I will be attentive to my neighbor's needs, and not indifferent to their pains and complaints;
That my tongue may be merciful, so that I will never speak badly of others, but have a word of comfort and forgiveness for all;
That my hands may be merciful and full of good deeds;
That my feet may be merciful, so that I will hasten to help my neighbor, despite my own fatigue and weakness;
That my heart may be merciful, so that I myself will share in all the sufferings of my neighbor."
Amen.
St. Faustina Kowalska