A Homily given at Mepkin Abbey for Divine Mercy Sunday by Fr. Gerard-Jonas
Called by Mercy
“Peace be with you,” the Risen Lord greeted His Apostles as He showed them his wounds. Why show His wounds? And why still the wounds in his glorious state as the Risen Lord? Is it to rebuke his apostles for having failed Him, for leaving Him, for denying Him by showing them the cost of their failure to stand by Him? Far from it. Actually, the opposite of it. He brings peace to appease their sorrow, their regret, their fear and anxieties, their uncertainty- all human weaknesses. Expressive of His loving mercy, the apostles were graced with the chance to recover, to regenerate. Pope Francis said, “the Wounds of Jesus are wounds of mercy.” They invite us to enter into the mystery of his merciful love. The glorious wounds of Jesus continue to “bind Him to our human condition” and expose the “inexhaustible source of light and truth, of love and forgiveness” – of mercy, said St Pope John Paul II.
Yes, it is alright to be vulnerable. It opens us up to God’s divine mercy. We are not forsaken in our weaknesses. Christ has redeemed us.
“See and touch the wounds in my hands and my side. Recall how redeeming blood and water flowed from my side,” Jesus seems to say. The late Pope Francis said that our era is an era of mercy, a time for the Church to show “her motherly face to a humanity that is wounded.”
Today, we behold woundedness all around us. There is so much violence, death, threat to life, and uncertainty lurking around us. It is easy to cower as the Apostles did. But let us welcome Jesus, the “Face of the Mercy of God,” as they also did. Let us welcome his Divine Mercy as they did.
The Risen Lord brings new life. “Peace be with you.” This did not just bring consolation to the grieving Apostles. It gave them joy! Then the Risen Lord put them to the task. “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” Breathing on them, Jesus exhorted them, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” This is the new life that the Risen Christ brings, the life of mercy. We are entrusted as dispensers of God’s mercy. This moved Peter in his Letter to exclaim: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading…”
Thanks to Thomas, amidst our weaknesses, we can also acclaim, “My Lord and My God.” Yes, with God, there is always hope. As St Pope John Paul II said, “God’s merciful love continues to spread over men and women of our time.” The late Pope Benedict XVI also once said, “It is mercy that puts an end to evil.”
The late Pope Francis, in proclaiming 2016 as a special Jubilee Year of Mercy, reminded us that no matter where we are or what we have become, God awaits to do what pleases Him most- to lovingly grant us His mercy. Mercy, he said, is God’s central attribute, and it is the late pope’s most treasured theological concept: the motto on his coat of arms reads: miserando atque eligendo, meaning, “by mercifully choosing” or perhaps even “by God’s merciful choice.”, a reference to Christ’s forgiveness of the tax collector Matthew. In 2016, an interview with him was published in a book: The Name of God is Mercy. With the Vatican reporter Andrea Tornielli, the Late Pope Francis recounted memories from his youth and moving anecdotes from his experiences as a pastor, why “mercy is the first attribute of God.” God does not want anyone to be lost. His mercy is infinitely greater than our sins.
In the Cistercian Rite of Profession, both Simple and Solemn, the first question asked the candidate is “What do you seek?” To which he responds: “The mercy of God and of the Order.” Yes, it is only in God’s mercy that we can live out our monastic vows of Obedience, Stability and Conversion of life or Fidelity to the Monastic Life. So we may say that the call to monastic life is the call to a life of mercy, mercy from God and mercy from and towards each other.
Indeed, mercy is our vocation not just as Cistercians but as Christians, for Jesus says, “Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” This is further reiterated by Jesus in a message to St Faustina: “I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me.”
And in establishing the Second Sunday as Divine Mercy Sunday in 2001 Pope St John Paul II said, “divine mercy is the Easter gift of the Risen Lord to the Church.” Also in proclaiming 2025 as the Jubilee Year of Hope, the late Pope Francis reminded that Mercy is the foundation of Hope.
So let us relish and live by this great Easter Gift of the Risen Lord. Let us trust in Jesus in His Divine Mercy and be dispensers of this grace of mercy to each other.
God bless us always.