Monday, April 9, 2018

Honoring the Divine Mercy



Homily: 2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday) – Cycle B
          This weekend we celebrate the second Sunday of Easter, which is also the 8th day of Easter, otherwise known as the octave day.  “Octave” day, because for each day during the last week, we have been celebrating as if it is still Easter Sunday.  Hopefully, the joy you felt last Sunday has stayed with you throughout this week and into today, because this is what the Church truly wishes for us.
          This 8th day of Easter has, since the year 2000, been named “Divine Mercy Sunday”: primarily in response to the instruction given by Jesus in a series of visions to Divine Mercy Sister (now “Saint”) Faustina Kowalska, in which he asked that the 2nd Sunday of Easter be dedicated to honoring the Divine Mercy.  That begs the question, of course: “What does it mean when we say that we are ‘honoring the Divine Mercy’?” as well as “What does that look like for us?”  Both our celebration and our scriptures today open for us both of these answers and so let’s take a look.
          First, let’s be sure that we understand why we honor the Divine Mercy on the 2nd Sunday of Easter.  Last week, we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus.  This event, in and of itself, is worthy of solemn celebration and honor: that Jesus, the 2nd Person of the Divine Trinity of persons, took on human flesh, lived among us, suffered the full force of evil-induced pain that the world can offer, and overcame the world by rising from the dead—in the same body, yes, but a body that had been transformed to be the glorious image of humanity restored to its original splendor.
          This Sunday we celebrate an equally beautiful thing: that God’s power, as demonstrated when Christ rose from the dead, was not just for himself—that is, to demonstrate to us his power and so oblige us to worship him alone (although he would be in the right to do that)—but that his power was for us, too.  In other words, we celebrate God’s mercy: that, through baptism, we have participation in the Resurrection: participation in the splendor of Christ’s glorified humanity.  The fact that this celebration comes on the octave day of Easter reminds us that these two celebrations—the Resurrection of Jesus and our participation in it—form one complete celebration of Easter.
          Therefore, when we celebrate today, we are truly honoring the Divine Mercy in that we honor Christ, who paid the price of God’s justice so that we could receive forgiveness of our sins.  Notice that, although throughout the Gospels we hear that Jesus gave his disciples a share in his power to heal the sick and drive out demons, Jesus doesn’t give them the power to forgive sins until after his death and resurrection: indicating that, in some sense, this power couldn’t be transferred until the full debt for sin had been paid.  And so, again, in honoring Christ for his saving work we are truly honoring the Divine Mercy which brought it about.
          Now that we’ve seen what it means to honor the Divine Mercy, we can answer the question “What does honoring the Divine Mercy look like for us?”: that is, “How do I honor the Divine Mercy in my everyday life?”  Here we can look to the early Christian community.
          In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard not about Jesus’ first disciples fearful and huddling in the upper room, but rather about the post-Pentecost community proclaiming Christ openly and growing day by day.  We heard how “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.”  From a historical standpoint, this made sense: because the first Christians were convinced that Jesus was going to return in their lifetime and so began to dissociate themselves from the world so as to be ready for Christ when he came.  Now we today can look at this in one of two ways: we can say either “Look at how the first Christians lived!  That is how we should be living!” or we can say “That was how they were called to live at that time, but we aren’t called to live that way in this time.”  The problem with this is that neither of these two responses is completely right.  And so, I would like to propose a middle ground, one that demonstrates how we are to live today so as to honor the Divine Mercy.
          One of the things that I can see in that early Christian community is how aware they were of the Divine Mercy.  Astonished that this gift would be available to them, they quickly recognized that to have the Divine Mercy was more important than having anything in this world.  Thus, when the interpretation of Jesus’ prophecy was that he would return within their lifetime, they freely shared everything they had with the community because their possessions had become unimportant to them.  For them, what was most important was sharing this good news and living in immediate preparation for Christ’s return.
          We who have received this same astonishing gift must interpret the prophecy of Jesus’ return for our own times and respond accordingly.  First, however, we must recognize the Divine Mercy as the most valuable gift we could ever receive and, thus, prefer nothing in this world to it.  Then, like the first Christians, we must remain vigilant for Jesus’ return: for although he has not yet returned, nearly two thousand years after his resurrection and ascension into heaven, he may still choose our lifetime to return.  The way that we remain vigilant is by being detached from our worldly possessions: ready to share them with others when demanded of us; because, soon enough, we’ll take leave of them all anyway.
          Nonetheless, the Father’s plan may be for Jesus not to return for another two thousand (or more) years!  Therefore, like the first generations of Christians learned, we have to plan for our future so that, if necessary, we can continue to proclaim this good news until the day that Christ appears again in glory.  Finding the balance between the two is the work of our lives.
          To make this somewhat concrete for us, I’d like to use a very practical rule that saints throughout the centuries have used, and of which 20th century U.S. Catholic Activist Dorothy Day gave simple form.  She said “If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor.”
          Friends, if we acknowledge the great gift that we have in the Divine Mercy—that is, the forgiveness of sins because Jesus paid the price for us—then we must honor the Divine Mercy by living mercy in our lives.  We do this when we lived detached from this world: providing for our needs, yes, but then sharing freely so that others may receive what they need.  And so today, as we bask in this celebration of God’s mercy, may the discipline of our Lenten fast, now ended, bring about a more concrete experience of God’s mercy for all—and, thus, his kingdom: the kingdom we experience most fully in this world, here in this Eucharist.
Given at all Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – April 8th, 2018

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