Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We are here eight days after the Resurrection, and I don’t know how you are at this point. Perhaps, you are like the disciples shut in and locked up with fear or have you been able to rejoice after living the Passover (Easter) well. I am sure some have lived it better than others. For many it has been a time where the Lord has passed and eight days later, how are we doing? How does the Lord find us in this Eucharist?
He comes again to give us good news on this first day of the week. I like that expression ‘the first day of the week’ since it is the day that the Lord shows himself. When we encounter him, we are invited to live a new life. When he reaches you, he touches your history, everything changes. We become a new man as we saw at Easter. A new man who therefore has a new life and that is why this expression: the first day of the week is wonderful, because today can be the first day of that new man. The first day of the week can be the first day of that chaste man, the first day of that generous man, the first day of that humble man, the first day of actually giving my life to the Lord. You can say today is the first day of not stealing anymore, the first day of not living for yourself. All of this can happen when we have this encounter with Christ. It is impressive that he arrives once and then eight days later, he arrives again. It is like an obsession that he always has to arrive on the first day, always on a Sunday.
Jesus did tell them to do this ‘ in commemoration of me’ so every eight days they are doing a Eucharist, which makes Christ present again. The same is true for us. He is present every time a Eucharist is celebrated and today Christ will be present unless you are watching on the streaming. He is present in the Word; he is present in his Body and his Blood; he is present in your life and hopefully he is present and stands at the closed doors as he did with his disciples. This is something marvelous that he arrives even when the doors are closed because the disciples are afraid of the Jews. They fear that they might also be killed, and they are afraid of dying.
We also have the doors closed because we are afraid and don’t want to die. But he does a miracle without breaking down the doors and without making a fuss, he stands before you today. And even if you have closed the doors, he says, peace be with you. He brings peace to you and to your life and to your history. The Risen Lord is the best medicine for those who are depressed, for those who have no meaning in their lives, for those who are enslaved to some vice. The Risen Lord is the solution. Christ is present here every Sunday and even every day.
Everyone likes to talk badly about Thomas, but it seems to me that he is wonderful. He says what is on his mind and if I was in his place, I would have said the same thing. Others believe because of what they have seen but I wanted to touch Jesus Christ and because of this Thomas has this experience of touching him, which gives him a much deeper and truer experience of the Lord than the other disciples. They were satisfied just to see him, but Thomas touches his mercy, and we celebrate this today on Divine Mercy Sunday. This day was chosen because Christ presents his wounds in front of his disciples. Before all of us, he shows us his wounds and the more you touch the wounds of Christ and the wound in his side and in his hands and feet, the more you touch the mercy of God.
They know that the Risen Lord has a different body. It is a glorious body, a new one, a different one. He appears to them and often they don’t recognize him. Even after being with him for three years and walking with him a full day on the way to Emmaus, they don’t realize who he was. This is because he has a different body, a glorious one. His body has the wounds but no longer the marks from the scourging or the crowning or the blood. His glorious body has only the wounds from the nails in his hands and in his feet and the wound from the spear in his side. Why is it this way? So that you may believe and touch his mercy, so that you may have the experience that Christ has died and has risen for you! This is why he keeps those wounds. So, you can touch the mercy of God through the wounds of his Son even when you are very bad, or especially when you are very bad. Also, when you are locked up in fear, the Lord returns to make Passover with you.
He comes close to you as he did to the disciples who did not do anything but simply did what Jesus told them to do ‘in remembrance of him’. And when they do that, he makes himself present in order to love you and show the glory of the resurrection and to give you his Holy Spirit. What a marvel, brothers and sisters, to have this time of Easter, which is fifty days long and to be able to touch his mercy, even in the midst of our sins and our weaknesses, in the midst of who we are. We are not super-men or women. Perhaps we have experienced the disappointment that the disciples had, and the Lord comes close to them and to us. He loves us and continues to love us and will always love us. This is the good news today!