Touching the Wounds of Christ
Divine Mercy Sunday, April 18, 2004
The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy
Stockbridge, MA
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Today in the Catholic Churches throughout the world we celebrate what has come to be known as Mercy Sunday. This first Sunday after Easter has been designated by our Holy Father for special attention to the Divine Mercy. However, in a real sense every Sunday is a Mercy Sunday, because every Sunday is the celebration of the Lord's glorious Resurrection.
Some may object saying, "But Good Friday is the Real Mercy Day for all the world." Of course we do not want to "Speak of anything but Christ and Him Crucified "(1Cor 1:23) as St. Paul says. But our Merciful and Crucified Savior comes to us ALIVE only in the glorious Resurrection. For example, we notice that the post Resurrection appearances of Jesus in the Gospels, which we celebrate in the Eucharist during the Easter season, are all declaring the Mercy of God. Our Holy Father says that "the form in which God's love comes to us in this world is MERCY and God's Merciful Love has the name of Jesus Christ" (RH 9)
In focusing our attention on what Christ is doing in the Easter narratives, we begin to notice how profoundly Mercy is manifest. On Easter evening Jesus appears to the frightened disciples who are securely locked away in a room-and to calm their fears, he says to them, "Peace be with you." But because of their obviously wavering faith, he then and there shows them the wounds in his hands and in his side and the mere sight of his sacred wounds healed their doubting hearts. Years later the author of the 1st Epistle of Peter was inspired to write these words: "By his wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2:24)
Once more Jesus says "Peace be with you" to assure the disciples they had nothing to fear, but equally important to recall to their minds, the fulfillment of the promise He made to them during that memorable Last Supper discourse when He said to them: "peace I leave you, My peace I give you-not as the world gives, do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid." Note, He doesn't rebuke them for abandoning Him during His Passion-rather He gently breathes the Holy Spirit upon them with these words: "receive the Holy Spirit-whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." It is, indeed, a Mercy Apparition.
One (1) week later, how clear it is that Our Lord's merciful love is turned full force to Thomas who had been insisting on his own criteria for faith in the risen Christ. The other Apostles had said to him: "We have seen the Lord" - but their seeing was not convincing enough for Thomas, who apparently doubted the sole evidence of his own eyes. Another sense would have to confirm his sense of sight-the sense of touch. So he exclaims, "unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands, and put my fingers into the nailmarks, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." That opportunity to do so comes to Thomas eight days after Jesus' first appearance to the disciples. Jesus is standing in their midst-Thomas is present now and Jesus does not wait to be questioned by Thomas, but to show that he was somehow present even when Thomas used certain words to his fellow disciples-He uses the same words-"Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe." St. John Chystostum, one of the early Fathers of the Church writes: "Consider the clemency of the Master-how for merely one soul He shows Himself and His wounds and draws near to save One. And yet the disciples who had spoken were worthy of belief, and so was He who had promised. Yet because Thomas alone asked for more proof, Christ does not deny him."
This scene is one of heart-breaking Mercy. It is Thomas' heart which is broken open-it is Thomas' heart which is touched to elicit from him one of the most beautiful expressions and supreme acts of Faith in the Gospels-"My Lord and My God." A rather strange response. We might have expected him to exclaim words like these-"Now, I believe-now I'm really convinced." But no-"My Lord and My God." His senses of sight and touch could never have persuaded him that Jesus was his Lord and God. As St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians proclaims: "No one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit." It was the lack of Faith then that caused Thomas to doubt. Now, we can infer from the words of St. Paul that this sudden Act of Faith for Thomas was a gift due entirely to God's instant and gracious giving. Well might Jesus have said to Thomas words similar to those he once said to Peter-"Flesh and Blood did not reveal my true identity to you, neither did your senses of sight and touch, but My Father through the Holy Spirit whom I give to you."
Pope John Paul looks on this scene of Mercy with joy: "Yes" he says, "Jesus is true God and true Man!" Like the apostle Thomas, the Church is constantly invited by Christ to touch His wounds, to recognize, that is, the fullness of His humanity, taken from MARY, given up to death, transfigured by the Resurrection: "Put your finger here and see my hands, and put your hand, and place it in my side" (Jn 20:27). Like Thomas, the Church bows down in adoration before the risen One and never ceases to exclaim "My Lord and My God" (Novo Milleno N. 21.)
The Gospel tells us, almost as an aside that Thomas is a twin-but we're never told the name or gender of the other twin. We can only speculate. But the fact that the Gospel writer thought this bit of information important enough to record may very well be his way of telling us to see ourselves as Thomas' twin-his doubting brothers and sisters-his twin in belief and disbelief. Even St. Gregory the Great said that he found more encouragement in Thomas' struggling faith than in Mary Magdalene's easier expression.
II. TOUCHING THE WOUNDS OF CHRIST
Our Holy Father says that the Church constantly needs to "touch the wounds of Christ."
"How is this possible?"
(1) Baptism: we touch the wounds of Christ in the Sacrament of Baptism, which rests in the center of the Church's paschal celebration of Easter. In the opening prayer of today's Mass we asked the God of Mercy-"As we celebrate Christ's resurrection, increase our awareness of these blessings and renew your gift of life within us.
INCREASE OUR AWARENESS
Renew your gift of life within us. The two words increase and renew emphasize the fact that Baptism is a dynamic reality. In the waters of Baptism we die to sin and death and rise forgiven to newness of life. An early text inscribed in the baptistery of St. John Laterans's Basilica in Rome, expresses this wondrous and joyful faith:
"Reborn in these depths, they (the Baptized) reach for heaven's realm. This spring is life that floods the world, the wounds of Christ its awesome source. Sinner, sink beneath this sacred surf that swallows age and gives back youth…Sinner Shudder not at your sins kind and number, for those born here today are holy."
How clear it is that Baptism is itself a spring of merciful love-a font of Mercy.
(2) Reconciliation:
The Sacrament of Reconciliation, too, is a celebration of the Mercy of God made possible by the glorious wounds of the Risen Christ. Christ's love breathes the Spirit of love and Mercy upon the penitent. Pope John Paul in the "Gospel of Life" writes to women who have had abortions: "The Father of Mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitely lost, and you will be able to ask forgiveness of your child, who is now living with the Lord."
A woman who had an abortion writes of this reality: "If I examine only my failures to do all things in Christ's love, then I am easily discouraged by the long road of transformation that lies ahead. But, if I allow God's mercy to examine my failures, then I am easily encouraged by the realization that I am being made perfect, not by my efforts to be loving, but by God loving me."
St. Augustine said something similar. "I remember my sins," he said, "not so much as committed by me, but as healed by god."
(3) Eucharist:
Let us never forget that the Eucharist itself is the foundation of Mercy for the Church, because Christ's Sacred wounds are most surely touched by the faith of those who hear the Gospel of Mercy and who celebrate and worthily receive the merciful Lord coming to us under the appearance of bread and wine-(as really as He appeared to St. Thomas) The Our Father which we pray during the Eucharistic celebration is itself a Mercy prayer, and is followed by prayers for mercy, joy, and peace-as when we cry out to the Lamb of God to have mercy on us and grant us peace.
III. MERCY AND LIFE
We touch the wounds of Christ, surely in the Sacraments, but also in and through Deeds of Mercy we do for love of God and neighbor. If we could be more aware of how deeply we live and move in God's mercy, we would be more radiant with the peace of Christ.
In the encyclical "Rich in Mercy" the Holy Father writes, "Mary is the one who has the deepest knowledge of the mystery of God's Mercy. She knows its price. She knows how great it is. She experienced Mercy as no one else did because she was preserved from original sin and enriched with the fullness of grace. She was chosen, through no merit of her own, to be the mother of the Redeemer-the King and Father of Mercy-a fact that certainly entitles her to be called Mother and Queen of Mercy. She began to fulfill her role as Mother of Mercy in a visible and public way as early as the Wedding Feast of Cana when the newlyweds ran short of wine. In response to her intercession, Jesus performed His first miracle. In heaven, she continues to intercede for us her children here on earth; hence, we confidently invoke her aid with the prayer: "Hail Holy Queen Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope and end it beseeching her "to turn your eyes of Mercy towards us." And you know what-"Never was it known that anyone who sought her intercession was left unaided.
My friends, Mercy is not a treasure to be locked away in our hearts or hoarded in our souls. From the beatitudes we learn this truth, the Merciful are blessed because they practice deeds of mercy and because they are channels of Divine Mercy. Such individuals as Dorothy Day, Archbishop Romero, John XXIII, Cardinal Francis Xavier, Van Thuan of Vietnam, St. Padre Pio, Martin Luther King, Jr., Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta and St. Faustina Kowalska are proclaimers of the beauty of God's Mercy for us. All of these great men and women of our time received Mercy and poured it out abundantly on the lives of others. For some, mercy means graciousness to the poor; for another, it means amnesty for fighting people; for yet another, it means patience and kindness to the sinner forgiveness to the persecutor and hope for a world divided - another assurance that the Merciful love of God is limitless and is for all.
My friends in Christ, in a few moments at a certain point in the liturgy of the Eucharist, I as Celebrant will elevate for your adoration the Consecrated Host and the wine in the Chalice containing the Consecrated wine. As devout and believing Catholic Christians you will exclaim within your hearts the same act of Faith first uttered by Thomas the Apostle-"My Lord and My God." But as praiseworthy as that act of Faith may be-as followers of Christ, it is not enough, for as Jesus himself once said (Matt 7:21)-"not everyone who says, "Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My father in heaven." And God wills that we be merciful as He is Merciful.
May I give you the short formula to exercise Mercy toward your neighbor as taught to St. Faustina by our Lord:
The first is by DEED.
The second is by WORD.
The third is by PRAYER.
Do them, my friends, and you're sure to be numbered among the merciful, blessed by God for time and eternity.
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