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Introducing the Resurrection: John 20:19-31

9/4/2021

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​The Gospel for this Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday, Year B, comes from the last part of St John Chapter 20 and contains the first and second appearances of the Risen Jesus to His disciples.

It seems to be God’s modus operandi to want a deep heartfelt commitment from us, and this requires that we come to that point of our own free will and at our own pace. It is a process that takes time. If you remember the parable of the sower, God isn’t interested in those who show lots of initial promise and then fade quickly away. He is interested in those willing to go through the full maturation process and then produce outstanding harvests.

If Jesus had burst upon the disciples with His full brilliance, there would have been immediate response, but responses that were unsustainable over the long term.

We see Jesus reveal His risen Self in stages.

Firstly He comes among them as they are standing together reciting evening prayer. He waits patiently until they realise that He is with them.

Only then does He speak to them. He waits patiently until they have all processed what He said.

Only then does He uncover His hands and side to them, so that they may gaze upon His wounds and begin to understand His passion and death.

Only when they have all seen His wounds does He commission them and begin the activity of the Holy Spirit within them.

We also see that it took the disciples time to process what Jesus showed them of His resurrection, and what it meant.

If they had processed it quickly, Thomas would have seen evidence in their changed behaviour and consequently believed what they told him of the resurrection. But eight days later, the doors are still closed/shut/locked.

We don’t really see any profound change until several weeks have passed and the Holy Spirit comes in power. All of these Easter weeks were needed for Jesus to teach them the many things He couldn’t teach them prior to the resurrection, and for them to begin to get their heads around it.

If Jesus treats them with such patience and merciful kindness, we should do the same for each other.

Have you noticed that people who love to quote Pope Francis about sour faced Christians not being Christians at all are usually naturally cheerful and positive people? It is a stick they like to brow beat the rest of us with at this time of year.

However the truth is that we are all in process; and some might be closer in that process to comprehending the impact of the resurrection than others, but it doesn’t give us the right to denigrate anyone else’s progress or lack thereof.

You could also look upon this process as stages in spiritual growth:

Most of us first get a sense of Jesus when we are gathered together in corporate prayer. For some this will take the form of prayer groups, or worship groups, or liturgical prayer, or the Mass.

When that awareness grows, then we begin to receive communications from Him. That could be the bible verse that jumps off the page, or a deep sense of the rightness of a particular decision, or even the interior voice He sometimes uses.

Only when we have got to know Him to a certain level, does He then take us to the level of understanding Him through His wounds and His Passion. 

Only then when we have begun to understand the sufferings and redemption He won for us, only then can we be sent out as witnesses, and only after the Holy Spirit has had His full way with us.

And a big part of that mission is reconciling relationships into unity through forgiveness. We cannot draw closer to God unless we draw closer to each other as well.

Let us remember that the first disciples actually saw the risen Jesus, and yet they still struggled to comprehend what it meant, and this process took significant time for them too.
​
May the risen Jesus grant us a share in His patience and merciful kindness, so that we might be a lot gentler to ourselves and to each other on our shared journey to comprehend the fullness of the resurrection. Amen.
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Evening Mass on Easter Sunday

6/4/2021

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This Easter I came across a very strange phenomenon – Evening Masses on Easter Sunday being scrapped. Sometimes they were replaced with late morning Masses, but sometimes they were just scrapped.

This is Wrong!

Biblically Wrong! 

And it is time the Liturgy was updated too!

John 20:19-31 contains the answer.
It is the Gospel for every Mass held on the 2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday).

But curiously it contains two stories: what happened on the first ever Easter Sunday evening, AND what happened a week later.

Other big solemnities have different readings for vigil and for Mass during the day (eg Pentecost). Christmas has different readings for vigil, during the night (a.k.a. Midnight), dawn and during the day.

Easter already has vigil and during the day, why not also have special readings and prayers for Easter evening?

You see, Easter Sunday evening should be celebrated with special gusto for two important biblical reasons.
1. It is the time that Jesus first showed His risen Self to His disciples.
2. It is when He initiated the sacrament of Penance.

That’s when Jesus showed up to be with His apostles and disciples.
Shouldn’t we be there to meet Him?
Shouldn’t we be celebrating both things ‘at the time it happened’, like all the other events of the Paschal Triduum?

Wouldn’t it be dreadful if Jesus showed up in our churches at that time with bucket loads of graces to give away – and there was no one there to receive Him, nor His gifts?

The liturgical gurus tell us that the Paschal Triduum does not end until vespers (evening prayer) on Easter Sunday, and there are in some liturgical rites quite a bit of pomp and circumstance attached to Easter Sunday vespers.

There’s no reason why we can’t have the Gospel for Easter Evening as John 20:19-23, and still have John 20:19-31 on Divine Mercy Sunday.

Surely it is time that we gave God proper thanks and praise for the institution of the sacrament of penance!

And then give Him due thanks and praise for His whole grand plan of unfathomable Mercy on the second Sunday of Easter.

It isn’t ‘double handling’.
Both are truly worthy of liturgical veneration.

It is time this ‘missing link’ in the Paschal Triduum was no longer missing.
​
Can I get an Amen, please?
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Divine Mercy Sunday: Why is it so?

10/4/2015

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Yes, it has happened again. Another Divine Mercy Sunday Mass that should have been reaping the spiritual harvest from the previous nine days of grace, and what happened? In the middle of the homily the priest mentioned it was Divine Mercy Sunday. That was it.

It was a far cry from what Jesus confided to St Faustina: 'No soul will be justified until it turns with confidence to My Mercy, and that is why the first Sunday after Easter is to be the Feast of Mercy. On that day, priests are to tell everyone about my great and unfathomable Mercy….Tell the confessor that the Image is to be on view in the church…By means of this Image I shall be granting many graces to souls; so let every soul have access to it.' From passage 570 'Divine Mercy in my Soul'

Maybe they lack homily ideas that enable them to preach about Mercy from the liturgical texts.

If so, here is a sample homily:

First Reading Year B: Acts 4:32-35

Something utterly amazing happened to the first Christians in the days and weeks following the first Pentecost. They were spontaneously generous with each other.

Do you remember the passage in Luke chapter 7 when Jesus tells Simon the Pharisee that the woman who had been weeping over His feet and covering them with kisses must have been forgiven much because she showed such great love? These first Christians were just doing what comes naturally after you have had a life-changing encounter with God's Mercy.

Do you remember how cut to the heart the first Christians were after St Peter told them that not only had they colluded in the death of an innocent man - they had colluded in the death of the only begotten Son of God? Many of them would have been in the crowd that Good Friday calling for the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus. Some of them may have been in the group that went to arrest Jesus. Some of them may have taken part in the tortures of Jesus that took place with the permission of the Sanhedrin. They knew they had done serious wrong. They knew they owed God big time. And yet Jesus offered them a place in His Kingdom if they repented and were baptized. For what they had done, major punishment was logically expected. And Jesus offered them peace, forgiveness and an eternal share in His divine life.

These first Christians experienced the unexpected mind-blowingly generous Mercy of God. Therefore they loved much.

And Jesus still offers this today. There is a woman with four grown sons, who back when she was much younger went through four abortions. She knows with certainty that Jesus rescued her from the abyss. Each year Jesus continues to heal deeper layers of her soul. She knows she owes God big time, and her heart is full of love for Jesus her Saviour. Her life she has happily placed at His disposal, generously serving and encouraging all those Jesus brings into her life. Her life still has major challenges, but her trust in the Mercy of Jesus gets her through all of them.

If your life isn't being fueled by constant gratitude to God, then today is the day to have a good long think. How conscious are you that you owe God big time? Because we all do.

Look today at the Image of Divine Mercy. Look at the wounds in the hands, feet and heart of Jesus. They are His promise to us that if we come to Him with all of our sins, wrongdoings, and crimes, that He will forgive us and make us dance with joy. There is nothing that cannot be forgiven through the power of the wounds and blood of Jesus our merciful Saviour. Absolutely nothing that cannot be forgiven.

All we have to do is to humble ourselves, enter the door of the confessional, and in pouring out the miseries of our souls to the priest, encounter the never-to-be-forgotten Mercy of Jesus.

If there is very little joy and generosity in your life, it is a pretty safe bet that you haven't seen the inside of a confessional for quite some time. Jesus is waiting for you there. Do not be afraid. His Mercy is limitless. He wants to heal you. He wants to restore you to full friendship with Him. He wants you to experience the joy and transformation of His forgiveness.

As soon as Mass is over I will be heading straight into the confessional. I will stay there as long as you keep coming. It is not a hardship for me. Every time someone comes to meet Jesus in the confessional, in this wonderful sacrament of Divine Mercy, Jesus shares with me some of the joy He feels when someone seeks His Mercy. It is the joy a junior scrub nurse feels doing her tiny bit to help the great surgeon transform severely mangled bodies into clean healthy bodies.

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