FAITH AND MERCY

S. Watanabe

S. Watanabe

This Sunday's Gospel gives us the wonderful story of  our doubting Thomas. St. Thomas is best known for his role in verifying the Resurrection of his Master. But before this we have other encounters with him. St. Thomas was a dedicated but impetuous follower of Christ. Thomas speaks in the Gospel of  John (11:16) when Lazarus has just died. The apostles do not want to go back to Judea, where the Pharisees had attempted to stone him to death. Thomas says: "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

 At the Last Supper, when Christ told His Apostles that He was going to prepare a place for them to which they also might come because they knew both the place and the way, Thomas pleaded that they did not understand and received the beautiful assurance that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

His unwillingness to believe that the other Apostles had seen their risen Lord on the first Easter Sunday merited for him the title of "doubting Thomas." Eight days later, on Christ's second apparition, St. Thomas was gently rebuked for his scepticism and furnished with the evidence he had demanded - putting his fingers in the place of the nails and his hand into His side. At this, St. Thomas became convinced of the truth of the Resurrection and exclaimed: "My Lord and My God," thus making a public Profession of Faith in the Divinity of Jesus. He utters the greatest confession of faith recorded anywhere in the New Testament.

Hanna Varghese- Malaysia

In the end his doubt, his desire to know Jesus for himself, was what brought him faith. And that faith gave him the strength to bring that message to so many others. Tradition says that after Pentecost  St. Thomas was sent to evangelize the Parthians, Medes, and Persians, ultimately reaching India.








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On this day we also celebrate DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY, one of the Church's newest feasts instituted by St. Pope John Paul in 2000. The Octave Day of Easter is truly meant to be, as Pope John Paul II once said, a day of “thanksgiving for the goodness God has shown to man in the whole Easter mystery” .

It recovers an ancient liturgical tradition, reflected in a teaching attributed to St. Augustine about the Easter Octave, which he called “the days of mercy and pardon,” and the Octave Day itself  “the compendium of the days of mercy.”

(Jesus I trust in You)

As Jesus said to St. Faustina, on this special day of the Church’s liturgical year, “the very depths of my tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon these souls who approach the fount of My Mercy”.