What is mercy during covid? A homily for Divine Mercy Sunday

Acts 4:32-35

Ps 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24

1 Jn 5:1-6

Jn 20:19-31

 

 

Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus,

quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius

 

"Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, 

His mercy endures forever" (Ps 118:1).

 

St. John Paul II began his homily on 30 April 2000,  the Second Sunday of Easter, with the opening and closing words of Psalm 118.  They are words that encourage us to rejoice in God's mercy, a mercy that is never withheld, despite our unfaithfulness.   During that Mass the Holy Father both canonized St. Faustina Kowalska, the Polish visionary and religious sister who wrote of Christ's Divine Mercy in her diary. He also declared that from that day on the Second Sunday of Easter would be known as Divine Mercy Sunday. 

 

The familiar image of Divine Mercy depicts Jesus clothed in white with His right hand raised in blessing and His left touching his chest.  Rays of red and white emanate from beneath His hand.  The rays recall the blood and water that flowed from Jesus' side when he was pierced by the soldier's lance. They represent the Divine Mercy poured out upon the world through baptism and the Eucharist.  Below the image is the signature: "Jesus I trust in You." 

 

When considering today's gospel many like to slag Thomas, or Doubting Thomas as he is colloquially known.  But doing so misses a much deeper meaning. The narrative of Thomas is not about doubt. It is about faith, faith that, like ours, was tested.   Thomas's faith emerged victorious from that test.  Faith is not the opposite of doubt.  Faith's opposite is indifference.  Faith and doubt are sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other.  Faith must always contend with periods of doubt throughout life. Faith does not mature or come to fullness without periodic struggles with doubt, struggles during which we wonder about deeper meaning.

 

The faith of many has been tested throughout this ghastly year during which covid forced many to be away from the Mass. It was a year of bureaucratic cruelty during which absurd, unthinking,  merciless, and morally wrong regulations in hospitals and care homes forced many to die alone and terrified, without the comforting presence  of a family member or friend at the bedside. The sad reality is that computer images via zoom and cell phones don't cut it when one is dying, especially during the frequently associated delirium that precedes it.

 

The papers screeched:  ALL HEALTH CARE WORKERS ARE HEROES. That is an arguable proposition at best.  Despite being staffed and administered by so called heroes,  hospitals and homes denied a husband, or wife, or child, attired similarly to your average nursing assistant, the opportunity to attend to a dying loved one, to offer a sip of water every few minutes,  to be present when the patient woke, and to perhaps ease the delirium. 

 

Institutions chose a cruel one-size-fits-all approach created by faceless and merciless bureaucrats who made sure they took care of their own first.  Pennsylvania's former secretary of health moved his (sic) mother out of her assisted living into a hotel before issuing an edict that all facilities had to accept covid transfers from hospitals.  

  

One weeps for those who will never recover from their guilt over being forced to abandon a dying parent, husband, wife, or child because of government and administrative fiat.  Many were, and still are, forced to die without the benefit of the sacraments because in Massachusetts, priests who serve nursing homes are considered vendors, classed with beauticians and barbers, and thus barred from anointing the dying, hearing their confessions, and absolving them of their sins during their last hours.  This is the antithesis of mercy and approaches the immoral.

 

Our trust in those elected to govern has been tested.  It may have been completely destroyed.  A weeping physician proclaiming pending doom on national TV is not an image in which one can have confidence. 

 

What of faith in God? 

 

Thomas, who was not present when Jesus first appeared after his Resurrection,  can be a model for us today.  Thomas' love for Jesus did not die on the cross, just as ours should not die because of government fiat. Thomas continued to love Jesus with the same kind of love we hold for a dead parent or friend, a love that may keep us off-balance for a long time. In his sorrow he found it difficult  to believe the message of the other apostles that they had seen Him.  His faith was tested.  And then we hear his faith-filled gasp when Jesus appeared:  “My Lord and my God!”

 

In his Letter to the Romans Paul reminds us that,  “Faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes by the preaching of Jesus Christ.”  That preaching of Jesus Christ does not come to us exclusively in oral form as it did at the Sermon on the Mount or in Jesus' many parables to His disciples.  Jesus' preaching comes to us in scripture, in the tradition of the Church, and, most especially, in the reception of the Eucharist.  Over the coming weeks we will hear of the beginnings of the Church.  Those early communities had the task of defining what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. 

 

In today's reading from Acts we hear of communal mercy that fulfilled the needs of those who otherwise would have gone without. That mercy is a reflection of the Divine Mercy bestowed on us today.  We will hear more in the coming weeks. 

 

At the end of their encounter, Jesus asked Thomas a question and bestowed a blessing, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”  We too must answer that question. 

 

The last sentence of this pericope puts the Gospels into perspective:  “Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.  But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in His name.” 

 

The gospels are not albums of verbal snapshots from Jesus' life.  They are not log books tracing Jesus' daily movements. There is no Captain Kirk-like "Star Date."  The gospels are not diaries of Jesus’ day-to-day thoughts and movements. They  are not history in the modern understanding of the word.   We can never interpret the gospels solely through the lenses of journalism, anthropology, or science without frustration and the risk of faithlessness.  

 

 

The Gospels proclaims one essential truth, that Jesus of Nazareth, of whom it speaks, is the Lord.  Thus, the fullness of Easter joy is contained in Thomas’ faith-filled, startled, and ultimately joyous proclamation.  That is why we too can gaze upon the True Body and Blood of Christ, from which flows the Divine Mercy, and say with Thomas and all the Church, “My Lord and My God.”  

 

Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus,

quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius

 

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia

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The photos below are from Divine Mercy Sunday 2017 when I was living with the Jesuit community in Ljubljana.  The church was full.  The men asked if I could take some shots.  In the end I walked over 2.5 miles during the two plus hour liturgy.

 + Fr. Jack, SJ, MD