19/04/2009 - 2nd. Sunday Easter Season
- B
Divine Mercy Sunday (4th. Anniversary since the election Benedict XVI)
1st. Reading Acts 4,32-35 Psalm 117 2nd. Reading 1Jn 5,1-6 Gospel Jn 20,19-31
"Our Father who is in heaven": we take this expression so for granted
that as if it does not produce any thing new in us. When one thinks of heaven,
what does one think off? Is it perhaps to a blue sky on a sunny day, or the
grey clouds, or to a dark sky with shining stars? Is God really up there? Children
ask many questions…and how to we answer to ourselves? What does the biblical
language that Jesus uses wants us to think of? For sure he is not speaking of
the skies we see. In fact no one ever saw God, and no one is could ever Him.
His heavens cannot be seen or touched by man's capacity, as much as powerful
man can be. The Father who loves us, looks at us and guards us, for we cannot
reach Him: it's not that we can control Him, or command Him, or even influence
Him. It's because of this that His love is great and beautiful, because it does
not originate from us, but from His heart. What if we are sinners? What if we
are out of His wishes or unable to follow His will? Since His love originates
from His heart and does not depend on our behavior, we are not to despair. It
can happen that some one can be in a hard situation, fruit of his sins and other
disorders, for which despair is the answer. But knowing that the Father's love
is always alive and faithful, man can always live in hope even though he cannot
change his situations or resolve his problems. Our Father is in heaven: He is
hidden from our eyes, but He sees us and follows our journey for He is not indifferent.
We live situations in which we don't see the love of God, but it is not so.
His love is sometimes as if hidden, but it is there. If we have to remember
the story of Joseph, son of Jacob, sold by his brothers, or the story of Daniel
and many other biblical figures, we can see the loving hand of the Father working
in their difficult times, a love greater all of us together can ever imagine.
Might be that even some of us can witness how the love of the Father was hidden
in our difficult and sorrowful life situations.
The resurrection of Jesus is truly an even that changed ever thing without limit.
The disciples, afraid and with no hope, are taken by a joy that they never experienced
before. The presence of the risen Lord raise them too by his Word. They receive
from him Peace, a peace that is the assurance that they have arrived to an end
for a new beginning. This peace reconcile them with the Lord after they had
left him alone. In the Father peace they were able to accept the mission, in
which they are invested in an unusual way: "As has sent me, I sent you".
Now they know what is the purpose of their life and their being united as brothers,
that is of remembering always Jesus, his obedience to the Father, and his going
down to others bringing God's mercy: this is their mission.
Then Jesus breaths on them the Holy Spirit, that Spirit who will give them day
by day the power and the inspiration, the wisdom and the prudence to fulfill
the mission received. The Spirit will help them to see the sins of others and
to forgive them as soon as they themselves humble themselves to ask for forgiveness,
as some one had already done it with Jesus. The first to enjoy of this forgiveness
are the same disciples: they were not immune of sin. They also doubted of God's
power and of His great love. This is Thomas: publicly he confesses his lack
of belief. His attitude is that of accusation towards the other ten: he accuses
them of being lairs and deceivers. Jesus comes back to them on the eight day,
and before anything, he wants to meet with Thomas. Among his apostles there
should be no division, no sadness, neither unbelief.
The Lord gives in for the disciples' request and showed him his wounds. He wanted
to touch them. We admire the great mercy of Jesus of which we give him our thanks.
He was not only merciful only with Thomas, but he is so with each and everyone.
How many times the Lord needed to give us signs of his presence, of his love,
of his divinity, so that we believe in him and commit ourselves to practice
his teachings? Without this faith we would be overcome by the world, by evil,
but instead, thanks to the resurrection of Jesus, the apostles maintained the
faith of the believers and helped them to experience that same faith with a
renewed loved which earth had never seen before: " No one considered his
own the property, but everything was in common among them". The mutual
love of the believers and their attention to the sufferings was the fruit and
the sign that Jesus was amongst them with his divine power of a true and faithful
love.