2nd Sunday of Easter — Divine Mercy Sunday

April 12, 2026

Faith in Jesus might be hard-won, but it strengthens us for the journey of life.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 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.” Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he 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.” Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

REFLECTIONS ON THE GOSPEL

First Impressions by Jude Siciliano, OP

Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 118; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

In the Catholic community today, the Second Sunday of Easter is called “Sunday of Divine Mercy.” Actually, any Sunday could be called Divine Mercy Sunday—or any Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, etc. Today we are invited to see the Resurrection not only as a victory over death, but as the opening of God’s heart in mercy. The Gospel today (John 20:19–31) shows mercy in action through the risen Jesus Christ and his encounter with his fearful disciples and with “the doubter,” Thomas the Apostle. Note the encouraging details in today’s story. The disciples are hiding in fear, shame, and uncertainty. Yet Jesus does not wait for them to get their act together and become brave or faithful. Instead, he comes to them as they are and says, “Peace be with you.” On this Divine Mercy Sunday, the Word proclaims that God’s mercy reaches us where we are – in our locked rooms of grief, regrets, failures, and anxieties. He reassures them, and us, that we do not have to be perfect to receive God’s mercy. The risen Christ comes to fearful hearts, not just to faithful ones. Jesus breathes the Spirit on the disciples and gives them the ministry of sharing what he has given them – the ministry of forgiveness. “Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive are forgiven them….” We are not only forgiven and comforted today for our failures as Christ’s disciples; we are also given a mission. We believers become a people called to extend patience, reconciliation, and compassion in families, workplaces, schools, and parish life. Mercy is the Church’s identity, not just one of our devotions. We knock on the door of one who has offended us. When they ask, “Who’s there?” we answer, “It is I, a forgiving person, and I have come to forgive.” However, mercy also makes room for doubt. The disciples, like Thomas, have doubts, questions, and struggles. Jesus did not reject Thomas, nor does he reject us. He invites us to touch his wounds. On this Divine Mercy Sunday, our faith community must be a safe place for honest questions – yes, even our own honest questions and fragile faith. Have you ever shared your doubts with another member of your faith community? Did you receive a compassionate hearing, without judgment or the imposition of guilt? Who does not have doubts, especially during personal struggles that push our faith to its limits? Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it can be the doorway to deeper faith. The bottom line: mercy listens before it judges. The wounds of Christ have not disappeared; they are the source of mercy. Jesus shows them to Thomas. His wounds are not erased by the Resurrection; they are transformed into signs of love. As Pope John Paul II taught, the mercy of God flows from the wounded heart of Christ. This has consequences for us, the faith community. Our own wounds can become places of grace. God’s mercy does not deny suffering. Jesus comes into a fearful, broken community and redeems it. His first word to them—and to us—is “Peace.” He speaks the same word three times: “Peace.” This is his first Easter gift—not certainty, not triumph, but peace in the midst of fear and anxiety. We are reminded today that resurrection faith grows in real life, not in ideal conditions. We are consoled by the story of Thomas the Apostle. He voices what we may feel: our disappointment and our need for assurance. Still, Jesus does not reject him. He returns a week later and meets Thomas exactly where he is. This tells us that the Lord is patient with our slow faith. He keeps coming back to us, Sunday after Sunday, each time we gather in worship. So our prayer today can be brief and to the point: “Thank God for Thomas.” We are invited by God’s Word today to bring our fears into the assembly. The risen Christ meets us behind locked doors. Here, once again, we receive our mission: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” We are sent by Easter faith to look outward toward reconciliation and mercy. We trust the quiet presence of the risen Christ among us. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” We believers live by trust, not by dramatic signs. Today the Gospel assures us that the Easter season is not about sustaining emotional excitement, but about learning to recognize the steady presence of the risen Lord in Word, Sacrament, and community life. In short: one week after Easter, the message we receive is simple and hopeful – Christ still comes, still speaks words of peace, and still sends us out into our world, even when our faith feels unfinished.

Quotable

Pope Francis has said: “The name of God is mercy.” — From his book “The Name of God Is Mercy” (2016)
“Mercy is the very foundation of the Church’s life.” — Misericordiae Vultus (Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee of Mercy, 2015)“Where there is mercy, there is the Spirit of Jesus.” — General Audience, January 2016
“God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy.”

Justice Bulletin Board by Barbara Molinari Quinby, MPS, Director Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, NC

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in His great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope. — 1 Peter 1:3

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday and I am including a portion of the biography of Faustina Kowalska, the first declared saint of the 21st century, whose humble life echoed the message she received and sends to us on this day. Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, an apostle of Divine Mercy, belongs today to the group of the most popular and well-known saints of the Church. Through her, the Lord Jesus communicates to the world the great message of God’s mercy and reveals the pattern of Christian perfection based on trust in God and on the attitude of mercy toward one’s neighbor. Sister Faustina was born on August 25, 1905, in Glogowiec, Poland of a poor and religious family of peasants. From a very tender age she stood out because of her love of prayer, work, obedience, and also her sensitivity to the poor. The Lord Jesus chose Sr. Maria Faustina as the Apostle and “Secretary” of His Mercy, so that she could tell the world about His great message, which Sr. Faustina recorded in a diary she titled Divine Mercy in My Soul. In the Old Covenant He said to her: “I sent prophets wielding thunderbolts to My people. Today I am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My Merciful Heart”(Diary, 1588). As you can see from my emphasis in bold above, the following statement is worth repeating, “ The pattern of Christian perfection [is] based on trust in God and on the attitude of mercy toward one’s neighbors.” The statement reminds me of a quote from the Apostolic Exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel. Pope Francis writes, “Sometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord’s wounds at arm’s length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people (270).” Be merciful.

Faith Book

Mini-reflections on the Sunday scripture readings designed for persons on the run. “Faith Book” is also brief enough to be posted in the Sunday parish bulletins people take home.

From today’s 1 Peter reading: “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.”

Reflection: This passage speaks beautifully to the heart of the Easter season. The first disciples saw the risen Christ, but most believers since then – including us – have not. Still, we gather week after week because we love and trust the Lord we cannot see. Faith becomes a way of seeing with the heart.

So, we ask ourselves:

• When in my daily life do I show love and trust in Christ, even though I cannot see him?

• What experiences have given me a sense of quiet joy or hope that comes from my faith?

• How does my faith in the risen Lord influence the way I face difficulties, disappointments, or uncertainties?

Fr. Paul Crowley, S.J. Homily

Father Paul Crowley, S.J. taught theology in the Religious Studies Department, Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries and at the Jesuit School of Theology. His teaching also brought him to Stanford University and the Weston School of Theology, now the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, as a visiting professor. He was a prolific writer with numerous award-winning publications, with books on Karl Rahner, Robert McAfee Brown, pluralism in the Church, and faith and suffering. Paul was very active in his profession, having served as editor-in-chief of the prestigious journal of the Society of Jesus, Theological Studies, and as a member of its board. He also held appointments on the boards of the Catholic Theological Society of America, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, and Jesuit School of Theology. He was good friend of the Catholic Community at Stanford, and devised two courses taught at Stanford through the Catholic Community at Stanford. This homily was posted on April 19, 2020, several months before his death from cancer on August 7, 2020.

When I was a boy, the first Sunday after Easter was known as “Low Sunday.” The previous Sunday had marked the greatest feast in the Christian year, in the Christian faith, and thus, anything following it had to be anticlimactic. Or so the thinking seemed to go. Yet, the Gospel was the same, John’s story about the doubting Thomas, and like today, Easter extended from Easter Sunday all the way to Pentecost. This year in particular, the moniker “Low” might seem appropriate enough.  Easter itself felt “low” due to the shelter-in-place orders most everyone has all been faithfully observing. In fact, things are so low at this point in the Covid-19 catastrophe, that what we celebrate on Easter and in this season might get lost in the overall sense of panic that has beset many of us. For we were celebrating—remembering—the fact that in Jesus, God acted in and through suffering and death to conquer it and bring about a new creation. and that this new creation is the foundation of our hope: That even in the midst of the worst suffering, and in the face of death itself, God’s grace is constantly on offer. It is tempting to attribute this Easter faith to a Christianized version of a myth of eternal return, or a theological gloss on the obvious wonder of new life springing forth from winter’s hardened earth and appearance of death.  But that is not what this is about, lovely as those images are, and even helpful in inspiring a sense of possibility, a future.  For the death that was conquered in the Resurrection of Jesus was a real, bodily death. And that body was itself an outward expression of the fact that God had entered fully into the human condition in Jesus (that other feast we celebrate in December, the Incarnation). What the Incarnation tells us is that our human natures are made for this union with God, accomplished fully in Jesus, and analogously accomplished in us through a lifetime of grace ever abounding. Aquinas reminds us that the finality of a human life is in union with God, and that that human life includes the body. Of course, we are not speaking of a union of a physical body with God—an absurdity—but of the whole of our persons, symbolized by the body, in God. What makes Christian faith in the Resurrection a real thing—what anchors it—is not the sheer will to believe. It is, rather, that there is something to be discovered in this embodied existence, where Christ dwelt, with all its suffering, with the ineluctability of death: that God is found there; God resides there. And that the human, human nature, is entrée into the full reality of God. The conditions for union with God, completion in God, are set even before we are aware of that fact—or even if we are never made aware of it. But those with the gift of faith are aware of this fact, and that makes all the difference as we face death. When Jesus quite often counsels his disciples to “fear not,” he is pointing to a profoundly challenging dimension of this faith, of believing: that we can let go of our fears, even in the midst of the most terrifying suffering, because God is radically present in the realities we inhabit and is there to lead us through all of this harrowing directly into a more intense union with himself. But, accepting that is not an easy thing. In today’s Gospel, Thomas is reaching for that kind of faith. He wants to touch the wounds of Christ, not for empirical evidence of the Resurrection in a modern scientific sense, but in order to connect the Jesus he sees with the fact that Jesus is, as John reminds us at the start of his Gospel, the Word made flesh. It is this very Word-made-flesh that has now been raised from the dead. Thomas wants the complete experience of this fact—a somatic experience of the completeness of God’s work in Jesus as God’s promise for him. And his response is not one of a modern sceptic (I now have evidence, and so I’ll give it some credence); it is rather one of worship, of adoration, before the manifestation of the power of God’s love: “My Lord and my God!” For before this fact, this unity between Incarnation and Resurrection, there is a unity between our own embodied existence and God’s desire for us, his constant self-offer. We are made for this unity, this glory—for Resurrection understood as the finality of our embodied existence, the completion of our human natures in God. All that said, the suffering and death we are witnessing and will continue to witness in the Covid-19 pandemic are overpoweringly real. They admit of no sugar-coating.  But no death admits of sugar-coating, especially when it is tinged with human sinfulness, as in warfare or violence. But even here we are challenged, as Thomas was, to find the reality of God—in the suffering and dying, in their bodies breaking down, in the overwhelming fatigue and frustration of generous health-care workers, in researchers looking for answers, and even in the dark recalcitrance of some “leaders” in the face of truth. If we are suffering ourselves in some real physical way, especially when it involves pain, this can make the challenge even greater. We are not disposed toward the search. We simply want to retreat, to escape. As well we might and sometimes should. But none of that empties the Resurrection of its meaning; in fact, what we are witnessing and many undergoing only reinforces it. We are now focused on our embodied lives, lives shared across artificial boundaries, and finding among ourselves a common set of hopes and ideals. Like Thomas, we want to touch others where they have been most grievously wounded. We are seeking to overcome fear, and to face the darkness in which we stand, especially through gestures of love. Some of us believe that in so doing we are walking the pathways of hope, of entry into a new creation—a new order for the human race. Or that we are at least rediscovering the patterns that are possible but too easily forgotten when we also lose sight of the full meaning of our shared embodied existence, of the transcendence of the human spirit reaching toward God, and of God’s reaching toward us in the very heart of the sufferings (and joys) that we undergo.

PREPARATION FOR THE SESSION

Presence of God: Jesus, As I come to you today, fill my heart, my whole being, with the wonder of your sacred presence. Help me to become more aware of your presence in my life, and more receptive to that presence. I desire to love you as you love me. May nothing ever separate me from you. ( 1-2 minutes of silence)

Freedom: Jesus, Grant me the grace to have freedom of spirit. Keep me from being bound by desires and actions that are not good for me or others. Cleanse my heart and soul that I may live joyously in your love. ( 1-2 minutes of silence)

Consciousness: Where am I with God? With others in my life? What am I grateful for? Is there something I am sorry for, words or actions that have hurt others, and which I now regret? I take a moment to ask forgiveness of God and of those whom I have hurt. God, I give you thanks for your constant love and care for me. Keep me always aware of your presence in my life. (2-3 minutes of silence)

OPENING PRAYER

Jesus, I let you whisper to me: ”you will be blessed if you decide to believe”. And you alone know how hard it is sometimes to believe in your goodness, your mercy, and your power over sin and death. You alone know how afraid we are to trust in others, and even in your presence in our lives, sustaining us. Lord, I want to believe. Help my unbelief.

COMPANIONS FOR THE JOURNEY

A reflection from Sacred Space, a sesrvice of the Irish Jesuits

• The Risen Jesus meets his closest friends for the first time after they had all abandoned him in his hour of need. It must have been a moment they were all dreading. Yet his first words, twice over, were, “Peace be with you.” No rebuke, no reproach, just ‘Peace!’ And then he showed them his wounds, the unmistakable signs.

• “As the Father sent me, I also send you.” While they were feeling they had failed abysmally as his disciples, he entrusted them with the same mission he had received from the Father: now they knew it was not they who had chosen him, but he had chosen them. Their mission, a mission of bringing forgiveness of sins, was to be carried out by the power of the Holy Spirit. I stand in awe in the presence of the Risen Jesus, sharing his great joy and that of his best friends at this meeting.

• Thomas is an ordinary person, knotted up in his own fears and doubts. Perhaps we all carry something of his DNA? Here we are shown the transforming impact which his personal encounter with Jesus has on him. Pope Francis says: ‘I invite all Christians to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them. I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day.’

• Sacred Space can be proud, because it anticipated his call by almost twenty years! Let us as a praying community continue to meet the Lord personally and help others to pray in the way we ourselves have learnt.

• “These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” The final sentence of this text underlines the purpose of the Gospel in general and of the Resurrection narrative in particular: that through faith in Jesus as the Messiah we may have life in His name.

• How do you test that Faith in yourself? What strengthens that Faith? What tends to undermine that Faith? What remedy do you have to counter this?

• Thomas places his hands in the wounds of Jesus, and the experience draws from him the first, ringing affirmation of Christ’s divinity: “My Lord and my God!” Fully human, and fully divine. Eternally human, eternally divine. His human nature is glorified, just as His divinity is humanised. Our human nature will be forever in Him; His divinity dwells within us, and will remain with us even to the consummation of the world.

• Here we are shown twice how Jesus breaks into the lives of his friends. Can he break in on me? Where am I in these scenes? Am I hesitant like Thomas? Am I looking for some sign before committing myself to the fact that I am living in a new world, the world of the resurrection?

• I let Jesus whisper to me, “You will be blessed if you decide to believe!” To believe in him is to give my heart to him, not just my head. It is not too demanding to do this, because he has already given his heart to me.

• Thomas is remembered for his big words: he seemed clear about what he needed to do and what would satisfy him. Yet, faced with Jesus, we see the real Thomas who recognises his Lord and God. He seems to have forgotten his need to probe, his desire for proof. You look beyond my words, Lord, you see what is in my heart.

• Help me, Lord, to be before you and to hear your word in this time of prayer. You know the needs of my mind. You have heard my words. Now, let me listen for your voice and know your presence. I lay aside my demands to receive what it is you offer to me.

• Are the doors of my heart locked? Do I not expect Jesus to show up and visit me? Am I afraid – afraid that my well-ordered ways of thinking and doing things might be turned upside down if I let Jesus in? Jesus, batter my unyielding heart and break down my defences, and come in.

• “Sending” is what God likes to do. Jesus is sent, the Holy Spirit is sent, and we are sent too. Jesus is sent to bring love, light and truth into the world. I too am sent. I am to bring love, light and truth into my little world. I am important to the plans of God. The world will be better if I carry out my mission.

• Brave, honest Thomas had gone off to grieve on his own, so he missed that meeting with the Lord. I can taste some of his isolation and resentment in his Unless.... I will not believe. I have suffered in this way when I isolated myself from the community of faith. It is when I am stunned by sorrow that I most need the company of friends and the support of faith.

• Thomas was a modern man, finding faith hard, like many people today. He was let down by the others who ran away, the leader denied Jesus, his trust in the group of apostles had been abused. He didn’t want much more to do with them. He had got tired of it all. He wanted to believe but needed a sort of proof. But faith grows within a community. That’s why we baptise children, because faith grows from the beginning of life. We find growth in our faith through the community—for example, in the Mass, shared rosary, sharing our faith in a group, a good spiritual book, sharing our doubts but never closing the door to Jesus, sharing our faith in thanks for what our faith gives us.

• In community, the disciples found faith in the risen Christ. Thomas, for some reason, was not with them when the Lord came. Separated from the community, he found faith more difficult. Faith in the Lord, while personal, is not a private affair. In the faith of one, the faith of another may be strengthened. Formation in faith for the disciples had its communal experience—together they learned and found faith in the Lord.

• The risen Jesus penetrates the disciples’ defences, overcomes their fears, and brings them joy. I ask him to pass through all my security systems and liberate me from whatever prevents me from “having life and having it in all its fullness.”

• Jesus always brings peace and reconciliation. Saint Augustine called peace “the tranquillity of order,” meaning order in my relationships with God, with other people and within myself. Where is there lack of peace in my life? Who do I need to make peace with? Do I make space to experience God’s forgiveness and gift of peace? I ask for his peace so that I may bring others peace.

• How did the others feel when Thomas challenged their testimony? Watch with them when Jesus comes to Thomas. Do they sympathise? Are they a little smug, even judgmental? Perhaps there is a lot of Thomas in me.

LIVING THE GOOD NEWS

Reflection Questions:
Those disciples were in a locked room because they were afraid. Are there doors to my heart that are locked?
What role does fear and self-preservation play in my tendency to lock myself away spiritually or emotionally?
What role does fear of change play in my unwillingness to let others in, even Jesus?

Did you ever make a promise that you ultimately were unable to fulfill?
How hard was it to face the one you disappointed?
Was your relationship ever the same?

If you were in Jesus place, what would you have said to those followers (like Peter, and like Thomas) who said they would follow him to his death? And didn’t?
Did Jesus response surprise you?

Scholars have said that the shalom means much more than the word “peace” What does the word shalom mean to you?

How do you define mercy?
Where, in this passage, is there evidence of God’s mercy?

Have you ever been called upon to receive mercy from someone else?
How hard was it to do so?

Have you ever been called on to extend mercy to someone else?
Was this mercy grudging, or condescending, or even insulting toward the recipient?

What is the role of understanding and compassion in extending mercy?
Where is the power dynamic in giving/receiving mercy?
Did Jesus reflect that?

Jesus greeted the disciples in the gospel twice with the words “peace be with you”. What is “peace” for me?
Has there ever been a lack of peace in my life?
Is there a lack of peace now?
How do I deal with his?

Thomas was called “the twin”. Could that refer to both his trusting and his skeptical self?
Can we be both believing and disbelieving at the same time?

When Thomas was separated from the community, he found faith more difficult. Has this been my experience?

Is it sometimes difficult to trust the assertion/testimony of another?
Can I sympathize with Thomas?

Do you think Jesus was judging Thomas?
What is the role of judgement in the practice of mercy?

Like Thomas, do I ever place conditions on my faith/belief?
Am I open to where God’s spirit may be recognized?
Is it enough to say “I believe”? or “My Lord and My God”?

What in my personal life tests my faith?
What strengthens it?
What weakens it?

Is there a climate of unbelief in our society?
What in our culture undermines trust/belief?
What supports it?

Who, in your experience, has not had proof to back up her belief, trust and optimism, but forged ahead anyway?
Are we asked to do this in our own daily lives in any way?

What does your relationship with Jesus do to sustain you in your fear and lack of trust/belief that, in the words of Julian Norwich: “All will be well”?

The emphasis on the wounds of Jesus in this gospel reinforces our recognition of the humanity of Jesus. Is it hard for me to identify with Jesus’ true humanity?
Do I really believe that Jesus is like us, with wounds of love, wounds of hate, and signs of suffering?

What do I see as “wounds” that the Church (the body of Christ) has received from the world, past and present?
What do I see as the ”wounds” that the Church has inflicted on itself?
What do I see as the “wounds” that the Church has inflicted on others?

“Blessed are those who have not seen, but believed.”
Does this imply somehow that we should have no doubts, or is this praise perhaps for John’s community who have never seen Jesus but believe in him, even despite their doubts and fears?
By extension, could it apply to us who have not seen, who may have doubts, yet choose to believe in the ultimate goodness that is Jesus?

Do you sympathize with Thomas or you find fault with his doubts ?

What do you think was the reason Jesus showed Thomas his wounds?
Do you think this shared experience brought Thomas closer to trusting and believing Jesus?

Have you ever been reluctant to show another your personal “wounds”?
Why?

Can sharing one ‘s woundedness ever be manipulative?
How do we avoid this tendency when imparting or receiving information about wounds that have been sustained?
Is it hard?

This story is a major example of how Jesus broke into the lives of his friends. Can I let him break into mine?

CLOSING PRAYER

Don’t forget to provide some prayer time at the beginning and at the end of the session (or both), allowing time to offer prayers for anyone you wish to pray for.

Lord of mercy, be with me in my daily life. Help me to extend mercy, forgiveness, acceptance and “shalom” to others as you have done so to me. Keep me open to the new truths about yourself that you are revealing to me each day, if I can but listen. Help me to share my wounds and help me to acknowledge the wounds of others, just as you did for Thomas.

FOR THE WEEK AHEAD

Weekly Memorization
Taken from the gospel for today’s session: Peace be with you.

Meditations
A Meditation in the Ignation Style/Imagination, freely adapted from “Sacred Space”, a service of the Irish Jesuits: I imagine that I am one of the disciples there in the room when Jesus first appears. How shocked am I? Am I fearful? Comforted? Does everyone in my community “see” that this is really the resurrected Jesus? Does it happen to each of us all at once, or is there a different pace of recognition for each of us? In my role as disciple in the upper room, am I at all hesitant to believe what I am seeing? How do I feel when Jesus says: ”Peace be with you”? What does it feel like when Jesus breathes on me and tells me to receive the Holy Spirit? Do I have any idea what he is talking about? When Thomas returns, do I rush to tell him what excitement he has missed? How do I feel when he rejects my testimony and demands some sort of proof? Do I feel this is this a rejection of Jesus or a rejection of my own personal experience of Jesus? When Thomas actually does encounter Jesus himself, he seems to forget his former need for proof. Did Jesus look into his heart and see the need that was there? Why do I think Jesus shows Thomas, and the rest of us his hands and his side? Do I feel connected, through those wounds, to our shared history? In my own life, do I ever feel that my experience of Jesus is special to me, and feel superior to those whose belief is harder won or even non-existent? In my own faith experience, do I hope that God looks beyond my first reaction, my hasty words, and sees the need in me for love, for reassurance, for comfort? I sit quietly in Jesus ‘ presence and listen for his voice, being open to whatever he offers me. I resolve to give Jesus not just my intellectual belief, but to give him my heart, because he has already given me his.

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action: (From “Justice Bulletin Board,” by Barbara Molinari Quimby, Director of Social Justice Ministries, Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, N.C.) When I came across these meditations that Pope Francis prepared for a spiritual retreat in 2016, I thought that each of us could find help for  our own spiritual journey toward being recreated in the image of Jesus, an image of mercy.

• 1st Meditation: Nothing unites us to God more than an act of mercy. . . for it is by mercy that the Lord forgives our sins and gives us the grace to practice acts of mercy in his name. Mercy impels us to pass from personal to the communal. We see this in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, a miracle born of Jesus’ compassion for his people and for others. Something similar happens when we act mercifully: the bread of mercy multiplies as it is shared. Mercy joins a human need to the heart of God, and this leads to immediate action. We cannot meditate on mercy without it turning into action. . . Mercy engages our whole being -- our feelings and our spirit -- and all other beings as well. Mercy gets its hands dirty. It touches, it gets involved, it gets caught up with others, it gets personal.

• 2nd Meditation: Saint Bernard has two fine sermons on the Lord’s wounds. There, in those wounds, we find mercy. Bernard pointedly asks: “Do you feel lost? “Are you troubled? Enter into the wounds of the Lord and there you will find mercy.”

• 3rd Meditation: Being merciful is not only “a way of life”, but “the way of life.”

POETIC REFLECTION

This is a lovely meditation (from a site called “Eleison”) on a poem by Denise Levertov, late a professor of English at Stanford University, who converted to Catholicism while she was here in her sixties and who wrote a Mass for the Day of St. Thomas (also called Mass for the Sunday of St. Thomas). This poem is taken from a book called the Stream and the Sapphire, which chronicles her journey from unbelief to faith.

Especially on this Sunday I am reminded of the poem “St. Thomas Didymus” by Denise Levertov. In her poem she exquisitely expresses both Thomas’ doubt as well as the beautiful revelation of the risen Lord. She draws a parallel between Thomas’ doubt and the epileptic’s father who exclaimed, “I believe Lord, help my unbelief.” Often, like Thomas, I struggle with doubts of my own. I often doubt that God will tend to me and provide for me as I walk the narrow way. I fear loneliness, rejection, isolation, and unhappiness as the result of my life choices. However, I find much comfort in knowing that like Thomas I can express and speak aloud my doubts and like Thomas not be rejected for my doubt but met by the Risen Lord so I may cry, “You are my Lord and my God.”

St. Thomas Didymus by Denise Levertov
In the hot street at noon I saw him
a small man
gray but vivid, standing forth
beyond the crowd’s buzzing
holding in desperate grip his shaking
teethgnashing son,
and thought him my brother.
I heard him cry out, weeping, and speak
those words,
Lord, I believe, help thou
mine unbelief,
and knew him
my twin:
a man whose entire being
had knotted itself
into the one tight drawn question,
Why,
why has this child lost his childhood in suffering,
why is this child who will soon be a man
tormented, torn twisted?
Why is he cruelly punished
who has done nothing except be born?
The twin of my birth
was not so close
as that man I heard
say what my heart
sighed with each beat, my breath silently
cried in and out,
in and out.
After the healing,
he, with his wondering
newly peaceful boy, receded;
no one
dwells on the gratitude, the astonished joy,
the swift
acceptance and forgetting.
I did not follow
to see their changed lives.
What I retained
was the flash of kinship.
Despite
all that I witnessed,
his question remained
my question, throbbed like a stealthy cancer,
known
only to doctor and patient. To others
I seemed well enough.
So it was
that after Golgotha
my spirit in secret
lurched in the same convulsed writhings
that tore that child
before he was healed.
And after the empty tomb
when they told me He lived, had spoken to Magdalen,
told me
that though He had passed through the door like a ghost
He had breathed on them
the breath of a living man-
even then
when hope tried with a flutter of wings
to lift me-
still, alone with myself,
my heavy cry was the same: Lord,
I believe,
help thou mine unbelief.
I needed
blood to tell me the truth,
the touch
of blood. Even
my sight of the dark crust of it
round the nailholes
didn’t thrust its meaning all the way through
to that manifold knot in me
that willed to possess all knowledge,
refusing to loosen
unless that insistence won
the battle I fought with life.
But when my hand
led by His hand’s firm clasp
entered the unhealed wound,
my fingers encountering
rib-bone and pulsing heat,
what I felt was not
scalding pain, shame for my obstinate need,
but light, light streaming
into me, over me, filling the room
as if I had lived till then
in a cold cave, and now
coming forth for the first time,
the knot that bound me unravelling,
I witnessed
all things quicken to color, to form,
my question
not answered but given
its part
in a vast unfolding design lit
by a risen sun.