Trong bài Tin Mừng hôm nay chúng ta thấy rằng các tông đồ sợ hãi những người do thái ví sợ bị bắt và bị tù đày vì rao giảng về chúa Giêsu sống lại, vì thế đã tự nhốt khóa chính họ trong căn phòng trên lầu, nhưng " Đức Giêsu đã hiện ra giữa họ, đứng trước mặt họ ... và đã phán “Bình an cho cho các con”, rồi Người thổi hơi vào các ông và bảo : “ Các con hãy nhận lấy Thánh Thần, Nếu các con tha thứ cho ai thì người đó được tha, nếu các con cầm buộc ai thì họ sẽ bị cầm buộc,. "
Nếu chúng ta có thể bảo quản " từ tất cả các sự lo lắng " trong khi chúng ta sốt sắng cầu nguyện trong Thánh Lễ , tham dự thường xuyên các Bí Tích Giải Tội và Bí tích Thánh Thể. Ơn cứu độ đã bắt đầu ngay từ hôm nay và bây giờ như chúng ta đang bắt đầu giải phóng những sự sợ hãi và lo lắng, Phần đầu tiên phải là tìm đến ơn tha thứ cho tất cả các tội lỗi của chúng ta . Xưng tội là một bí tích của sự Phục Sinh. Mừng lễ Phục Sinh: chúng ta mừng kỷ niệm sự hòa giải lòng Thương Xót của Chúa Kitô. Xin Chúa Thánh Thần sẽ thương ban giúp cho chúng ta sự bình an của niềm tin và sự đam mê vào ơn cứu độ của Chúa Kitô và sự phục sinh trong Lòng Thuơng Xót của Chúa bao la..
Today we hear that the apostles, bound by the imprisonment of fear, have locked themselves into the upper room, and that "Jesus came and stood before them...Then he breathed on them and said: 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men's sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound.' "
In this Easter season, we celebrate the Divine gift of the third person of the Blessed Trinity, the Holy Spirit, as an outpouring of the Risen Christ. Today the Church shares in the Resurrection and the life of Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What does this gift mean to the Church? The peace of Christ, always ours with the forgiveness of our sins.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches us what the Church has always believed by professing in the Creed "I believe in the forgiveness of sins": our gift for salvation in the Holy Spirit. The Creed links "the forgiveness of sins" with profession of faith in the Holy Spirit because the risen Christ entrusted to the apostles the power to forgive sins when he gave them the Holy Spirit. Baptism is the first and chief sacrament of the forgiveness of sins: it unites us to Christ, who died and rose, and gives us the Holy Spirit. By Christ's will, the Church possesses the power to forgive our sins after baptism and exercises it through bishops and priests normally in the sacrament of Penance.
"In the forgiveness of sins, both priests and sacraments are instruments which our Lord Jesus Christ, the only author and liberal giver of salvation, wills to use in order to efface our sins and give us the grace of justification." (CCC 984-987) If you would be preserved "from all anxiety" as we pray in the Mass, regularly practice the Sacrament of Confession. Salvation begins now as we are released from the bonds of fear and anxiety, in the first place by the forgiveness of our sins. Confession is an Easter sacrament. Celebrate Easter: celebrate Confession. The Holy Spirit will give you the peace of confidence in Christ's saving passion and Resurrection.
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together, we "meet Christ in the liturgy" –
This is a very special Sunday. First, it is Divine Mercy Sunday or the day to glorify the Mercy of God. But, also, today in Rome two men, Blessed John XXIII and Blessed John Paul II, will be canonized as Saints in the Church. It seems like only yesterday in 2005 on Divine Mercy Sunday that Pope John Paul II died. For most of us, he was the man we identified most with the Church and the papacy. This is because he served as Holy Father for almost 27 years and traveled all over the globe. Blessed John Paul II will forever be connected to the feast of Divine Mercy since he established it, he died on it, and he is now canonized on it. But, the connections don’t stop there.
Blessed John Paul II was deeply moved by this devotion, which was based on the private revelations and visions of a Polish religious sister, St Faustina. He lived during her lifetime and experienced the power of the message God gave her to spread.
It can be difficult to speak of the topic of the Lord’s Divine Mercy. God’s Mercy is endless, but it also must be acknowledged that the Lord allows suffering and other forms of evil to happen in the world because of man’s sinfulness. To see this we only need to look at the last century which included two World Wars, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, legalized abortion, and most recently the attacks of 9/11. Most of us, if we are honest, have questioned why the all-good God would permit such sufferings? Where is His Divine Mercy in such tragedies?
The answer is found in the Gospel and especially in today’s passage. Jesus appears to his disciples saying, “Peace be with you!” As He does this we are told that He shows them His hands and His side. Jesus has just walked through a wall and is standing before the terrified disciples with the appearance of a ghost. The veil to the Lord’s divinity is fully lifted, but He draws their attention to His Sacred Wounds. There in His side and hands are the remnants of the terrible evil that the Son of God endured. Yet, now things are different. This is not the dying Christ, but the Glorified Body. These wounds are no longer signs of shame, but trophies of His victory over evil.
Good or Evil, Our Choice to Make
As Jesus holds these Sacred Wounds up to the disciples, He is showing them tangibly the limit that God places on evil. The greatest of evil was done, not to us, but to Jesus Christ who is God and thus totally innocent. But, by this one sacrifice for all, God has forever placed a limit on evil. When Christ rose from the dead this marked the limit of suffering, death, and evil. Yes, Sin and the devil can cause evil to happen in the world, but only to a degree. This degree is permitted so that we can freely chose God; Choose good over evil, live over death. In our free will, we can choose to respond to Divine Mercy or not. Seeking God’s mercy is done when we freely accept the Lord’s forgiveness, love, and strength through the Sacraments of His Body the Church. First and foremost, this is given in Confession and the Holy Eucharist. God so loves us that he wants us to choose for ourselves good over evil.
This Sunday is a special time to choose to glorify the Divine Mercy. To implore the Lord: “for the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!” This day we bring ourselves and our loved ones to the Font of Mercy. We come to Jesus’ side, pierced by the soldier’s lance, from which flows a fountain of Mercy for us all. St. Thomas placed his hand into Jesus’ side. We bring to the Sacred Heart all of those we know who are in need of God’s boundless mercy. First, we begin with ourselves. We have all sinned and contributed to the evil and suffering in the world. Thanks to the Divine Mercy, Jesus places a limit on how far this evil can go. He forgives. God spares us from countless evils and showers us with graces we do not deserve.
So as we give thanks for the life of two holy popes, let us recognize that all the Saints are products of God’s Divine Mercy. They are not holy because of anything they did or supernatural qualities they had. The Saints are holy because they had the humility and courage to come to the Font of Mercy. To place themselves under the blood and water which flowed from Jesus pierced side. It was God who cleansed them of their sins and enabled them to achieve great heights of holiness. Let us all come to His Side and receive the new life won for us by God’s Divine Mercy.
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. John 20:30–31
Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through that belief you will inherit eternal life? Belief begins with an intellectual assent but must continuously deepen. The belief Saint John speaks of in today’s Gospel is one that draws us deeper into the mystery of Christ’s Paschal Mystery—His Life, Death, and Resurrection—so as to receive the gift of His abundant and transforming Mercy.
Today is the eighth day of Easter. The Church, in Her wisdom, celebrates the most important days of the liturgical year for eight days. Historically, there were a number of feasts celebrated with octaves: Easter, Epiphany, Corpus Christi, Ascension, All Saints, and in some locales, the Sacred Heart and various Marian feasts. After Vatican II, the Church focused on two—Christmas and Easter—so as to give greater emphasis to the core of the Paschal Mystery.
In the year 2000, the Octave of Easter took on a new focus when Saint Pope John Paul II instituted the Solemnity of Divine Mercy on the eighth day of Easter. This was done in response to Jesus’ personal request, communicated to the Church through a humble cloistered Polish nun. Canonized in 2000, she is known as Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska.
Between 1931 and 1938, Sister Faustina received numerous mystical visions that she recorded in six notebooks, now referred to collectively as Divine Mercy in My Soul: Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska. Almost two years before her death, Sister Faustina recorded the following entry in her diary:
On one occasion, I heard these words: “My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which grace flows are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. Everything that exists has come forth from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy” (Diary #699).
When we reflect on this beautiful private revelation in the light of today’s Gospel, we are invited to consider that even though the Gospels present us with all we need to know in order to come to faith in Christ and share in the new life He bestows, the treasure of His Divine Mercy is inexhaustible. Just as “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book,” so also the depths of His ongoing work, His Divine Mercy, will only be seen in Heaven.
Divine Mercy Sunday is a day on which we are to profess our belief in this Mercy. To do so, we must ponder these inexhaustible treasures, probe their depths with the aid of Saint Faustina’s private revelations, and then allow our Lord to reveal them to us within the depths of our souls.
Reflect today on the infinite and inexhaustible treasures found in the Person of Christ and His Divine Mercy. His Mercy draws us into countless unrecorded and glorious graces that we are called to receive and rejoice in. Believe in His Mercy. Be open to it. Call upon it today, and receive it more abundantly.
Most Merciful Jesus, Your mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. On this Divine Mercy Sunday, I pray that You will pour out Your Mercy upon me and on the whole world. Fill us with the grace You won through Your Paschal Mystery so that all people will come to believe in You as their Lord and God. Jesus, I trust in You.
Opening Prayer: Lord God, I truly desire eternal life in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. As I make my way through this passing world, keep my eyes fixed on heaven so that I may be an instrument of your merciful love. I believe, Lord, help my unbelief!
the risen Jesus. The first appearance took place on Sunday, the day of the Resurrection. The second also took place on Sunday, exactly one week later. For some reason, Thomas the Apostle was not present at the first appearance and said that he would not believe until he saw the risen Jesus and verified the wounds of his passion. Because of this, Thomas is called “doubting Thomas.” But, in truth, all of the apostles, except maybe for John, were slow to believe or doubted. In fact, the Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus rebuked the Eleven for their unbelief. The Eleven didn’t believe Mary Magdalene when she told them that she had seen the risen Lord. And, although some disciples believed that Jesus had appeared to Simon Peter (Luke 24:33-35), some of the other disciples didn’t believe the two disciples who met Jesus on the way to Emmaus and recognized him in the breaking of the bread (Mark 16:12-13). Thomas did not believe until he saw what the other apostles and disciples beheld. When Jesus appeared for the second time, he showed his hands and his side to Thomas and invited him to verify his wounds. This is important because the body of the risen Christ was truly his body, but was also different. Showing the nail holes and the opened side gave evidence of continuity. The risen Jesus was different, but was the same person who was with them during his public ministry. The fact that the glorified body of the risen Jesus still bore the wounds of his crucifixion was a testimony to the depth of his love for us.
2. The Four Pillars of the Christian Life: In the First Reading, we find a description of the early life of the Church. We read: “they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. These four things are the pillars of every Christian life. “Every Christian should be ‘devoted to the teaching of the Apostles,’ which means they should be interested in studying their faith, whether that means reading and studying the Bible, the Catechism, or other books (by saints or spiritual writers) that faithfully transmit the faith handed down from the Apostles. Every Christian should be devoted to ‘communal life,’ that is, practicing a lifestyle of sharing their time, prayers, and goods with other Christians, deepening spiritual friendships, and sharing spiritual gifts. Every Christian should be devoted to ‘the breaking of bread,’ that is, should practice Eucharistic devotion, both within and outside of Mass.
3. Resurrection and Regeneration: In the Second Reading, Peter speaks to those who did not have the grace of seeing Jesus: “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him.” Peter’s letter is an invitation to faith, hope, and love. Peter teaches that the rebirth of Jesus from the dead (resurrection) gives believers a spiritual rebirth by grace (regeneration). “The idea is that God fathers or begets us anew, not in the natural way of biological parentage, but in a supernatural way that gives us a share in his own divine life (cf. 2 Pet 1:4). The benefit of this grace is a new birth into the family of God, so that believers united with Christ become ‘newborn infants’ (1 Pet 2:2) and ‘children’ (1 Pet 1:14) united in a ‘brotherhood’ of faith (1 Pet 5:9). It is their privilege to invoke God as ‘Father’ (1 Pet 1:17) and to await heaven as their ‘inheritance’ (1 Pet 1:4)” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, 2199). The suffering we endure in this life is the fire that refines our faith and makes us more like Christ.
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