HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

Bishop of Rome 2013-2025

Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

Our beloved Pope Francis will be laid to rest near the confessionals on the right hand side in the picture above, as per his wishes: “The tomb should be in the ground; simple, without particular ornamentation, bearing only the inscription: Franciscus”.

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APRIL 27 2025: THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER: SUNDAY OF DIVINE MERCY

St. Thomas, Pierre Le Gros the Younger 1705-11, Papal, Patriarchal and Roman Archbasilica Cathedral of the Most Holy Saviour and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in Lateran, Mother and Head of All Churches in Rome and in the World, Rome, Italy, commonly known as St. John Lateran.

Click here to read today’s Sunday Mass Readings.

[Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”    John 20:27-28.

Click on words highlighted in red for further information. 

Thomas, after that passage appeared in John’s gospel, today’s gospel, has forever been given the name Doubting Thomas, and his finger has been his sign and symbol ever since (look at the statue above). And we might well be tempted to have done the same thing, hearing the outlandish claim that someone had returned from the grave! Thomas was pretty defiant about it, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Then, confronted by the irrefutable evidence that he was wrong, Thomas sank to his knees with the words, “My Lord and my God”, the one and only time in all Christian Scripture that Jesus was so addressed. And we are not told if he did place his finger into the wounds. So, in a sense, we are all Thomases until we accept and believe the truth of this gospel and can utter those words “My Lord and my God” from the heart. And there are other revelations in today’s gospel. We are told two times that the doors of the place where the disciples found themselves were locked. So, the entire Christian church was sealed in one room somewhere in Jerusalem, by tradition, the Upper Room, the Cenacle:

The Upper Room, traditionally called The Cenacle, 2018, Jerusalem, Israel. 

Why? One presumes they were terrified that the fate which had fallen on Jesus would fall on them as his followers. And who would not blame them for being scared of that hideous Roman punishment? It was deliberately brutal as a disincentive to challenge any Roman law or question any Roman authority (or, in this case, to appease a hostile crowd). They were all in hiding. So when the Lord appeared in their midst and said “Peace be with you” you can be pretty sure that peace was just about the last attribute they enjoyed. Terror would be more like it. It also seems from this passage in John’s gospel that there was a kind of Pentecost event which took place, the receiving of the Holy Spirit of God. But as they remained behind locked doors, perhaps that was still to happen fully. At the real event, commemorated on Pentecost Sunday, they all rushed out into the street proclaiming the Lord as Messiah and Savior with no fear at all of the consequences! Perhaps this was a prequel gift from God waiting to be unwrapped. Today’s first reading in fact does describe that later post-Pentecost boldness the disciples eventually displayed.

And this Divine Mercy Sunday is one of the rare occasions when the main readings are all from the New Testament; only today’s psalm is from Jewish scripture, and that praises the divine quality of mercy: Let the house of Israel say, “His mercy endures forever”. My preferred definition of mercy is, “Compassion on someone who does not deserve it”. Recall the woman caught in adultery two Sundays ago. She did not ask for forgiveness, but Jesus did forgive her. This gentle act of forgiveness shows mercy, compassion on someone who did not deserve it. And remember the criminal crucified next to Jesus, who said that he deserved his punishment, but Jesus had done no wrong, and asked him to remember him. Jesus, in an act of pure mercy, said that he would be with him in paradise. So mercy reflects the divine; it is of God, and hence we are required to be merciful servants of God. Not easy!

And then there is the second reading today, again traditionally from John’s hand. This talks of his divine inspiration to write the Book of Revelation, certainly one of the strangest of all Christian writings, describing the end time and the extraordinary events to come. And he saw the Risen Lord also, the Alpha and Omega (the first and last letters of the Greek Alphabet, A and Ω, meaning the Lord of Everything). It was he who instructed John to write down what he saw. In Angers, in France, there is a unique collection of tapestries which display what he saw:

Tapestry of the Apocalypse, 1375, Château d’Angers, Angers, France.

So, how do we conclude this extraordinary week, tying in the death of a beloved Pope and this Sunday of Divine Mercy? Pope Francis was, if anything, a Pope of Mercy. He delighted in accepting people of all religions or none, he washed the feet of criminals, he listened to people who were in pain, victims of horrendous sexual abuse by Catholic priests. He insisted that the official church listen to the voices of the non-ordained. He appealed time and again for peace between nations, between opposing viewpoints, between individuals. He became the voice of peace and acceptance in the world. We could hardly do any better than to adopt his attitudes and response to others, to women, to gay people, to non-Christians, to those you disagree with, putting aside hostility in favor of friendship and the love that Jesus had for everyone, including his torturers. We could do no better than that.

 

PLEASE FORWARD THIS A SOMEONE YOU KNOW  WHO MIGHT FIND IT HELPFUL, REASSURING AND FULL OF HOPE. THANK YOU. 

Reflections on next Sunday’s Mass Readings will be posted on Wednesday.

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