Divine Mercy Sunday
Readings of the day: Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31
This homily was given during the monthly Mass for Pax Christi, a Catholic movement to promote peace, at the Federal Building in downtown Rochester, NY.
Readings of the day: Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31
This homily was given during the monthly Mass for Pax Christi, a Catholic movement to promote peace, at the Federal Building in downtown Rochester, NY.
“Peace be with you.” Is this not a
beautiful and yet very simple greeting? How appropriate that we hear the risen
Jesus greet his disciples, on “that first day of the week” after his
resurrection: “Peace be with you”! We here are dedicated to the peace of
Christ. We are a movement named and entrusted with bringing into; witnessing in
our world to the peace of Christ, Pax
Christi. And so, on this day especially, “Peace be with you.”
But can this greeting not also be
somewhat off-putting? In a few moments, just before we receive Christ in our
Eucharist, I will invite us, in Christ’s own words, to offer one another a sign
of peace: “Peace be with you.” But have some of us, especially those of us who
remember the Mass before Vatican II, ever found the sign of peace where it is
now during Mass to be off-putting? It is fairly new to us to “offer a sign of
peace” just before receiving communion. The sign of peace just before communion
is only about fifty years old, dating back to Vatican II.
Have any of us heard, mainly from
Catholics a generation or two before my time, but from some younger faithful,
too, words like “unnerving,” “off-putting,” “embarrassing,” and even
“distracting” to describe our exchange of a sign of peace just when we are
preparing reverently to receive communion? There sometimes seems to be no
“right” way to give and receive the sign of peace. Have we not seen timid
handshakes, the peace sign to somebody across several pews, or the people who
wander to try to shake hands with every person in the building? Alright, perhaps
this might be a bit excessive…
Yet our sign of peace has deep roots in
our Catholic liturgy. Dominican Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, who lives in Oxford,
England, speaks of this history in a humorous way. Fr. Radcliffe says that in
the 1200s the newly-founded Dominican and Franciscan orders were sent to preach
peace and unity among people from divided city states in northern Italy. Before
communion at Mass, there would be a pause for “a solemn moment of
reconciliation.” Each person would embrace the person next to them: “Peace be
with you.” How is this for off-putting; unnerving; embarrassing?
“Peace be with you.” This ritual sign of
peace as we know it was recovered at Vatican II as a symbol of our peace with
all people. Fr. Radcliffe also tells the story of two of the “fathers” of
Vatican II, the French theologians Marie-Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar. Congar’s
sign of peace “was a grave and formal gesture,” Radcliffe says, “whereas Chenu”
would “affectionately” punch and hug his neighbor and tug on his hair! How is
this for off-putting, unnerving, and embarrassing? And yet this is nothing compared
to medieval northern Italians reconciling and wishing Christ’s peace to the
people they had just tried to kill in battle!
“Peace be with you.” Why is this such an
off-putting, unnerving, maybe embarrassing gesture, even for many of us today?
Why, perhaps, should it be? What are
the effects of Christ’s peace, of wishing Christ’s peace, to one another? Let
us return to our Gospel reading today. What was the effect of Christ’s peace on
Jesus’ first disciples, gathered behind locked doors a few days after Jesus’
resurrection?
Imagine for a moment being one of these first
disciples. We hear from John that “the doors were locked” to the room where
they were gathered, for fear of the religious leaders of the day who had put
Jesus to death; for fear of their own lives! And then Jesus enters the locked
room and greets them: “Peace be with you.” Does this not raise off-putting,
unnerving, and embarrassing, not to mention frightening, to a new level?
The first effect of this peace that the
risen Christ gives to his disciples is the gift of the Holy Spirit. “Receive
the Holy Spirit,” Jesus says. And what does the Holy Spirit empower us to do?
The Holy Spirit empowers us to go out to the world; to evangelize the world with Christ’s peace for one another; with
the same gift of the Holy Spirit for one another: “As the Father has sent me,
so I send you.”
Christ sends us forth with his peace;
his gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift that empowers us to forgiveness and, at the
same time, conviction and accountability: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins
you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” The
Holy Spirit enables us to keep God’s commandments, the sign that we love God
and one another according to our second reading today, from the First Letter of
John. The Holy Spirit is “the one who testifies”; the one who bears witness to the
truth through us. The Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth that, with God,
peace is possible and indeed our responsibility as baptized Christians. “The
Spirit is truth.”
The Holy Spirit empowers us to be what
is impossible without God’s presence and action in our lives: To be “of one
heart and mind” in bearing witness to the resurrected Christ. “Peace be with
you”: This is not a peace that is a mere absence of violence or war; a peace
that means keeping one foot on the throat of our enemy. This is a peace that
seeks one another’s good; a peace borne out of true love of God and of one
another. Christ’s peace, given us by the gift of the Holy Spirit, empowers us
to love in this way; to love as God loves us. Christ’s peace and gift of the
Holy Spirit also empower us to bold words and actions of faith.
When Jesus stands among his disciples
and greets them the first time, “Peace be with you… receive the Holy Spirit,” the
Apostle Thomas is not present with the others. Why is Thomas not present? This
could be for many reasons: Perhaps fear; perhaps a feeling of being wounded by
his own guilt, which had broken down his faith. But the risen Christ does not
give up on us; does not give up on Thomas. “A week later,” when Thomas is
present with the other disciples, Jesus appears and greets them once again:
“Peace be with you.”
Is Thomas unnerved; embarrassed;
frightened? He is probably all three. Thomas speaks what the other disciples
are probably all feeling: “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.” Jesus invites Thomas to put his hands in Jesus’ wounds. Jesus invites
Thomas to make physical contact with his and our own woundedness; our own sin
that, with Jesus Christ, was put to death that day on Calvary.
This is the condition for true healing
for Thomas and for us: To touch our own woundedness; our own sin; our violence
done to our own human dignity; our own lack of peace. This is the only way for
us to true forgiveness; to true peace. Only then is Thomas able to exclaim with
possibly the most beautiful and profound profession of faith in all of
Scripture: “My Lord and my God”!
For Thomas and for us, is this way to
peace, to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit of witness; of faith; of
forgiveness; of peace; of God’s love for us, not off-putting; unnerving, or
perhaps embarrassing? I imagine so.
And yet to be in touch with our own
woundedness is the only way for us to be healed; the only way for us to
“receive the Holy Spirit”; the only way for us to receive the peace of our
risen Christ, a peace the world cannot give. It is the only way for us to be
able then to exclaim boldly with the believing Apostle Thomas: “My Lord and my
God”!
“Peace be with you.”
