Divine Mercy Sunday

Anita Pearce was a single mother who lived in Brownsville New York with her three sons. Over a period of six years, all three of her sons were gunned down and killed in gang violence. Her youngest son was killed right on her doorstep. This was obviously a deeply traumatic experience for Anita, and she relived her grief every time a child is killed in her neighbourhood. Despite this, she has refused to be trapped by fear and a sense of victimhood. Instead she has reached out to others. Anita has become an eloquent advocate for gun control and community responsibility, talking at schools and other places. She started a support group for mothers who have experienced similar trauma to her own, and when a child dies on the pavement, she visits the family to comfort them. She says that in the beginning she wished her sons had never been born. But now she says, “In their deaths, there is sorrow, but there is also some unbelievable joy. If I had not had my three sons, I would not be the kind of person I am today. They help me not to be selfish.” The frame of her door still bears the marks of the bullets which killed her youngest son. Although she doesn’t always notice them, she knows they are there. Why doesn’t she have the frame repaired? “I want those holes to be a constant reminder that a young man lost his life at that spot. When you fix things, people tend to forget.”

When you fix things, people tend to forget. I think that this is perhaps why Jesus’ risen body still bears the scars of his passion. Jesus’ passion would have been an incredibly traumatic experience for him. Even though he was God, his divinity did not prevent him from having a full human experience, including enduring the trauma of a violent death, hated by those who sent him to his death, and abandoned by those he counted as his closest friends. His death would have also been hugely traumatic for his disciples. Unlike the women disciples who stuck with him right to the foot of the cross, his male disciples did not have to endure seeing his actual crucifixion. However, we can be sure that the women described this event in detail to them when they met later behind closed doors in the upper room. But what would have weighed them down far more would be the guilt that they carried for having abandoned their Master in his hour of need. When Jesus comes back to them in his Risen body, it is not a body that is spotless and pure, as if all of this trauma never even happened. It is a body that bears the marks of that trauma and shows clearly that he has overcome that trauma, that he has risen above it and is now stronger for it. “By his wounds we are healed” (Is 53: 5). We are healed from our own wounds by Jesus’ wounds because whether these wounds are self-inflicted through our own sin or inflicted through the sin of others, we realize that we need not let our whole lives be defined by them. In Jesus’ victory over death and sin we find the grace necessary to rise above our own sin. By Jesus’ wounds we are healed of self-pity and a sense of victimhood, we are set free from the paralyzing force of guilt.

Whether she acknowledged it or not, this was also where Anita found the strength to rise above her own sense of victimhood and self-pity. She could have remained paralyzed and wallowing in self-pity and victimhood. Instead she used her wounds as an opportunity to minister to others as a wounded healer. In the words of St. Paul, “where sin abounds, grace abounded even more” (Rm 5: 20-21), so that Jesus turns this traumatic experience both for himself and for his disciples into an opportunity for intense grace. He does not do this by wiping out the memory of the cross and his wounds. In fact he does the very opposite and commands that this experience take centre-stage in their memorial of him: “do this in memory of me.” “When you fix things, people tend to forget” – Jesus will forever be the one whose side was pierced in order to wash the world with his blood and water. It is no accident that our central symbol as Christians is the symbol of the cross. The cross acts as that bullet in Anita’s door frame – a constant reminder that we can go back to Jesus put our hands into his wounded side and there find solace and mercy when we find ourselves paralyzed by our own sinfulness and that of the world.

The experience of God’s mercy leads seamlessly to a sense of mission. In fact, I don’t think that you can have one without the other. We don’t actually ever see Jesus forgiving the disciples for having abandoned him in his hour of need. Jesus’ way of forgiving them is to show that he still trusts them and is still prepared to send them out on mission. Often in a movie we will see a huge argument and fight between two people and then a subsequent scene where they reconcile. But often the actual reconciliation is tacit, it often consists of the offended person simply seeing the offender, grunting or nodding in their direction and then giving them some work to do. The giving of work to do acts as a symbol of forgiveness. In today’s gospel – Jesus giving his disciples the power to forgive sins is the operator of Jesus’ own forgiveness towards them. Their own experience of being set free from their sin is what gives them the power, the energy and the motivation to share this same liberating experience with others. This too is our task as we celebrate today the great mercy of our God by which we have all been saved.

Questions for reflection

1. After experiencing the mercy of God in the sacrament of reconciliation or otherwise, do I feel sent on mission by the Lord to share this mercy with others?
2. Where am I most in need of granting and receiving mercy to and from others in my life? Am I willing to let the giving of a mission be the operator of this much needed forgiveness?