THE UNSPOKEN WORD, April 19, 2020, “Divine Mercy Sunday” - Acts of the Apostles 2: 42 to 47 / First Letter of Peter 1: 3 to 9 / John 24: 13 t 35
 
 
            Boy! If ever we needed some divine mercy, it’s now! Bombarded with one dire situation after another, I duck for cover whenever CNN comes on. The only way I get through the days is by compartmentalizing stuff.
 
            I’ve been trying all week to figure out how to turn today’s Scriptures into a comforting and strengthening message. The power of the Holy Spirit resides in the words of Scripture but we access that power by faith. And faith is the very thing being tested these long weeks of confinement. So here goes.
 
            One of the pastors with whom I worked early in my priesthood gave me a valuable piece of advice about homilies: “Always know how you’re going to end it.” His thought, of course, was that, if you get lost in the middle of your presentation, or if the congregation is bored and getting restless, have a quick “wrap-up” ready.
 
            But there’s a deeper lesson to be learned here. Most of the best novels, plays and movies grab our attention right away with a powerful beginning and leave us with a satisfying, provocative or dazzling last line or scene. Charles Dickens’ begins A Christmas Carol with this crisp, peculiar and very un-Christmas-y line: “Marley was dead ....” He does the same thing at the start of A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” Something in our mind says “Why?” and wants to keep reading in order to find out more. In the movie Gone With the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara leaves us with the tantalizing line, “Tomorrow is another day!” (Will there be a sequel, we wonder, as the closing credits roll.) How about the heart-wrenching final scene in the movie Shane? Little Brandon DeWilde goes running down the road after the retreating figure of the departing father-figure, the gunman Shane, crying helplessly, “Shane! Come back!”
                      
            Today’s Gospel story is like that. Both the opening and closing lines are meant to grab our attention. Let’s start with the last lines.
 
            We always read this Gospel on the Sunday after Easter. The last two sentences are actually the first ending of Saint John’s Gospel. Another episode was added later, along with a second ending. John says that there are many more stories he could tell, but that he has written these down so that we might have Faith. But, for the rest of the Easter season, almost all our Gospel readings come from Saint John’s Gospel  ... so, at least from a liturgical viewpoint, the end isn’t really the end.
 
            The story, of course, is one of the most famous and beloved of all the Resurrection stories. It unfolds in two scenes. In the first, Jesus comes to His humiliated, guilt-ridden and terrified friends and just says, “Shalom!” That one word speaks volumes. No need for groveling, apologies, excuses. Their cowardice and treachery are forgotten. Jesus performs a sacramental gesture; He breathes on them. Just as God had breathed in to the nostrils of the first man and gave him life, so the Risen Lord breathes new life into hearts deadened by shame and fear.
 
            However, this forgiveness does have a catch. What they have received, they must feely give. If they do not forgive people’s sins, those poor sinners are “held bound.” The New Life breathed upon the world, the Life of the Holy Spirit, is in the hands of the same frail, lackluster, bumbling and ego-centric men who had failed Jesus miserably only three days ago.
 
            The second episode of the story is even more startling. Thomas, absent from the first encounter with Jesus, demands the unthinkable. He wants to touch Christ’s wounds as the price for believing. His logic is okay. After all, the other ten disciples had gotten to “see” Jesus; according to Luke’s Gospel, they ate with Him. Thomas only wants what everybody else got.
 
            When He appears again, without letting Thomas ask, Jesus simply invites him to touch. Thomas capitulates. “My Lord and My God,” his affirmation of belief that Jesus has risen, is a statement of a deeper Faith: Jesus not only has conquered death; He is, in fact, God in the flesh.
 
            Jesus gently chides Thomas by complimenting the millions, perhaps billions, of people down through the ages who will believe without seeing. And that brings the story full circle. Jesus had bestowed on the disciples the power of the Spirit, to extend His own saving work through all of time. That is how Faith will be grown. Thus the little ending Saint John tacked on to the story:  “... that they may
believe.”
 
            Now recall the opening sentences of the story. Both episodes began with the same one-two punch:   “... the doors were locked for fear ...” and “... Jesus came ...!” Not so different from this year’s experience of Easter!! Keep that in mind; it matters almost more than the rest of the story.
 
            Not only the Gospel, but also the other two Scriptures, all actually deal with Faith, in four different ways: (1) as doctrine; (2) as practice; (3) as virtue; and (4) as gift. The reading from the Book of Acts  describes  these four activities as found in the earliest Christian community: learning the teaching given by the Apostles - that’s “doctrine”; communal life - that’s “practice”; the breaking of bread - that’s “gift”; and, finally, prayers - that’s “virtue.”
 
            Right now, we are deprived of the gift, joy and obligation of gathering as a community for Mass. The center has been torn out of our usual experience of Catholicism. People write or call to tell me all the time how hard it is to be without Holy Communion, Christ’s stunningly beautiful and gracious gift of Himself. It is a tremendous blow to our Faith life. We still can recite the Apostles’ Creed, the oldest of the Church’s official Creeds. Many people do, each time they begin the Rosary. Here in this homily, we are trying to “learn the teaching given by the Apostles.” And, when Saint John says “the prayers,” he is referring to the public prayers recited by the community, we still can pray together separately.
 
            The doors are locked; Jesus comes!
 
            Let’s move on to the other two Scripture readings.
 
            The First Letter of Peter was probably a teaching written for an ancient Baptismal ceremony. In today’s selection, the writer talks about three gifts Baptism has given us - (1) a living hope; (2) an imperishable inheritance; and (3) salvation. File them under “doctrine,” which is the the first of the four items mentioned in the reading from Acts.
 
            But what the author says afterward leaps off the page at us during this time of fear and deprivation:   “For a little while, you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith ...  may prove to be for praise, glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Although you have not seen Him, you love Him; even though you do not see Him now, yet you believe ...!”
 
            That last line brings us right back to the closing sentence of Saint John’s Gospel - “that you may believe!”  It turns out, then, that Faith is not so much the tool to get us over the strain of this pandemic as it is a result of our enduring the fear and discomfort. Did you notice how, in the Gospel, Jesus’ “Shalom!”  was not so much the simple gift of forgiveness as it was a command to get about the task of sharing that forgiveness? 
 
            We are being asked to do difficult things: to wear masks; to avoid crowds; to stay home (which for many means forfeiting pay or losing their jobs entirely); to forego gatherings; to learn at a distance; to surrender cherished hopes for graduations, proms, anniversaries, weddings and, sadly, funeral services. We are being challenged to face the terrible reality of death, in all its loneliness, ugliness and helplessness.
 
            The doors are locked; Jesus comes!
 
            Doing this can be simply a burden; or it can be suffering in the power of Christ’s “shalom.”  We can simply be wounded; or we can “touch” His wounds and be healed. Our endurance might lead to Faith - to the very things we are now denied: a gathering of the “Faith”-ful in community prayer; a devout reception of the renewed Eucharist.
 
             This weekend is the Second Sunday in the Easter season. It used to be called by the odd name of “Low Sunday.” it also was known as “Dominica in Albis,” the Sunday in White, because it was the day on which the newly-baptized wore their white robes for the last time. Saint Pope John Paul II gave it the new name “Divine Mercy Sunday.” [NOTE: Along with this homily is posted a story about the change from Low to Divine Mercy Sunday.] Although the readings have been standard for over 40 years, they do fit nicely into the theme of Divine Mercy. That mercy was exquisitely on display, with tenderness, graciousness and charm, in the story of Jesus and “Doubting Thomas.” It echoes throughout all three readings. 
 
            Although, right now, it’s hard for us to “see” Christ, we do love Him ... and he loves us. The doors are “locked”; still, Jesus comes. That is Divine Mercy. It will see us through.