SECOND
SUNDAY OF EASTER
16
April 2023 – Holy Spirit Parish
(SUNDAY OF DIVINE
MERCY)
Acts 2:42-47
1 Pt 1:3-9
Jn
20:19-31
Easter
Victory! Easter Triumph! Easter Joy! Christ once slain now lives forever! Alleluia! Alleluia!
From the texts
assigned for the Liturgy of this Divine Mercy Sunday we read in the Acts of the
Apostles:
“And every day the Lord added to their number those who were
being saved.”
Take two things
from that short sentence! 1) Every day the Lord added to their number and
2) those who were being saved. This message delivered in the pages of
the Acts of the Apostles seems somehow contrary to the way we experience Church
in our day and time. Why is that? Firstly: Why don’t we (adult Catholics today)
seem to expect the Church to grow in any significant way and certainly not
every day as we read in Acts? Why do we seem to content ourselves with a Church
that does not seem to grow at all, a Church that resigns itself maybe to counting
infant baptisms and seems to have its hopes set on no more than the first
confessions and first communions of our children.
I am not saying that Catholics today
don’t want people to join the Church, but that we don’t seem to expect them to
either. Last week here at Holy Spirit at the Easter Vigil we received 13 younger
adults into the faith through Confirmation, one young man among them being baptized
on that occasion. That was a lovely experience for all those young adults who
received Confirmation and made their First Holy Communion. I could read on
their faces and on the faces of their sponsors both joy and excitement. Among
the people here in church at the Easter Vigil this unique event (far from an
everyday occurrence in the Church) gave evidence of a steady and quiet joy in
the congregation and for some of those present, like me, even a bit of a thrill.
Easter triumph! Easter joy! What kind of joy? Why this joy? I suppose because at
the Vigil we saw a very concrete hope for the future. We saw the Church really growing
the way it is supposed to. Make no mistake! The nature of the Church is to
grow. This is our history and our heritage. This must be what went on in the
Acts of the Apostles. “And every day the Lord added to their number those
who were being saved.”
Slow down! Not so
fast! Can we really expect things to happen in the Catholic Church today like back
in Apostolic times? I think yes. To the extent that significant numbers are not
being added to the Church in a constant kind of way is not good. If we are not growing,
then we must be dying. The slow death of Catholicism is not a fate to which we
should resign ourselves. We should be eager, we should be striving to draw
people into Christ’s fold.
St. Peter’s
Letter (our Second Reading) puts it this way: “Although you have not seen
him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you
rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your
faith, the salvation of your souls.” That is St. Peter teaching us too, and
not just making a statement for the sake of spreading the Gospel back in
Apostolic times. His message of salvation has lost nothing of its relevance and
of its urgency for the people of our day as well. That is also basically the
sense of the words of the Risen Lord in today’s Gospel to the doubting Thomas. St.
Thomas professes his faith in the Resurrection after touching Jesus. He says, “My
Lord and my God!” To which Jesus responds: “You believe in me, Thomas,
because you have seen me, says the Lord; blessed are they who have not seen me,
but still believe!”
But what indeed
is our role as ordinary Catholic people in the pews? How should we be going
about living our Catholic faith today? In the Acts of the Apostles, in the
Gospel accounts of the appearances of the Risen One, were the Apostles and the
first deacons of the Church, like St. Stephen and St. Philipp, the only members
of the Church called to spread the Good News? Not hardly! Is it necessary to
embrace the fullness of Catholic faith if we are to save our souls? Obviously,
yes! There can be no limited or second class faith. We must love and believe
with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. None of us can be excused from
embracing Catholic faith fully and without reserve. That requires of us that we
get that message out to all whom we meet, to all whom we love. Why else are
these accounts to be found in the Acts of the Apostles and why else did St.
Peter write what he did? Our salvation is in Jesus Christ risen and victorious
over sin and death. The Lord Jesus lives in His Church. “Although you have
not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in
him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal
of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
This Second
Sunday of Easter has all kinds of names. It is called Low Sunday in English, in
Latin it is referred to as Dominica in Albis, because this was the Octave Day
for the newly baptized adults to set aside the white garments they had been
wearing since the Vigil of Easter. Pope St. John Paul II christened the Octave
Day as Divine Mercy Sunday after the very special devotion to Christ’s infinite
mercy propagated in recent times by St. Faustina. The devotion fits perfectly with
the traditional Gospel passage which speaks not only of St. Thomas, but also recounts
the institution of the Sacrament of Penance.
“Jesus said to
them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And
when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy
Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are
retained.’”
Divine Mercy!
Easter Victory! Easter Triumph! Easter
Joy! Christ once slain now lives forever! Alleluia! Alleluia!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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