(Homily for Divine Mercy Sunday, 19 April 2009) 

 

In a world that is not getting any better, the message of the Divine Mercy has never been more relevant. We are all in need of God’s Mercy. It was the late Pope John Paul II who saw to it that the Feast of the Divine Mercy be instituted at the Second Sunday of Easter. The same Pope John Paul II who died right after the Mass of the Feast of the Divine Mercy. 

Mercy as God’s attribute can very well be found in Scriptures. In Exodus 34, God granted a daring prayer Moses made to God.. Moses, during his time, was well known to have been the only person on earth with whom God conversed. And so Moses prayed that God would show Himself, His face to him. But no one has ever seen God and lived. God showed not His face but His back to Moses and as the Lord was passing him by Moses was heard to exclaim, “a gracious Lord, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” In Isaiah 54, we hear these comforting words from the Lord, “The mountains and hills may crumble, My love for you will never end. So says the Lord who has mercy on you.”

To reflect on the meaning of mercy is to reflect on the meaning of brokenness. We are all a broken people . We may have succeeded well in our studies and careers but at the end of the day, when we come before God we know we are so broken within. We cannot boast of anything before God. Our families and communities are all broken. There is no perfect relationship.We are all in need of His Mercy and that includes us, priests and religious.

When Pope John XXIII was still Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, the Patriarch of Venice, his priest-secretary came to report to him of the scandalous behaviour of a certain priest. The secretary wanted to get his reaction to such unbecoming behaviour from a clergyman. Roncalli was then holding a wine goblet and so he asked his secretary, “Whose glass is this?” “It is yours, Eminence.” Without saying another word, the Cardinal threw the glass into the floor. The glass broke into a thousand pieces. The Cardinal then asked his secretary, “Whose glass is it now?” The secretary reflected for a while and then said, “It is still yours, Eminence.” With that, the Cardinal made his point, “Is this priest you are talking about any lesser brother of mine just because he is all broken…?” And of course, the answer to that is no.

In a way, God is merciful in allowing us to experience and acknowledge our brokenness. For once we’ve come to terms with our brokenness, we can be more understanding of other people’s failings and weaknesses. We become less demanding of them. We feel compassion for them for we know that we ourselves have our own struggles in life. We all have our weaknesses and how we wish they are all gone. With St. Paul we pray that God may take away the thorn in our flesh, that the angel of Satan may not beat us anymore. But, as the Lord told the Apostle, “My Grace is enough for you. For in weakness, My power reaches perfection.”When we see ourselves all broken, it is then that we are most vulnerable to Grace.

St. Benedict tell his monks in his holy Rule “never to despair of God’s mercy.”We should never get discouraged with ourselves because of our many sins. We should never get discouraged in life. We should never lose hope in life. A Holocaust survivor wrote: There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper. God is greater than our sins. God is greater than our misery. We should also never lose hope on one another. It is said that to forgive is not to lose hope on that person especially as Bishop Antonio Tagle said, “Each person is a promise waiting to be fulfilled.”

Every now and then we speak of blessings in disguise. Whatever happens to us in life brings with it other blessings. Whatever happens to us in life is a mercy from God  and it brings with it so many other mercies from God. The monastic writer Thomas Merton terms it as “mercy within mercy within mercy.” Take for example a great trial we have been subjected to. That trial brings with it other blessings or mercies. When we are tried, it could be a wake up call from God for us to reform our lives. When we are tried, God is preparing us and strengthening us for future trials.. It is also an invitation to grow and deepen our outlook in life. If only we take time to listen, we will begin to realize that what we go through in life is an experience of mercy within mercy within mercy.

On this Feast of the Divine Mercy, we are also invited to approach the Sacrament of Mercy which is the Sacrament of Confession. Some of us have become cynical of going to Confession since we hold that we can go directly to God and confess our sins. Isn’t it providential that the Gospel for this second Sunday of Easter is about Jesus telling Peter, “Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be declared bound in Heaven and whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in Heaven” ? Thus did Jesus institute the Sacrament of Confession or Reconciliation. And Jesus revealed a promise to St Faustina Kowalska, the Apostle of Divine Mercy that a soul who goes to Confession and receives Holy Communion on the Feast of the Divine Mercy shall have all his sins cancelled and all punishment due him revoked.

On the images of the Divine Mercy, we read the inscription “Jesus, I trust in Thee.” To trust, according to one priest, is to let God write the script of our lives and not for us to have our way in writing the script. To trust is to let God be God and not for us to dictate on Him. Our Lord told St. Faustina, “The graces of My Mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only – trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive.