Here is the
full text of Pope Francis' homily on Divine Mercy Sunday, delivered April 19 at
Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome
Last Sunday
we celebrated the Lord’s resurrection; today we witness the resurrection of his
disciple. It has already been a week, a week since the disciples had seen the
Risen Lord, but in spite of this, they remained fearful, cringing behind
“closed doors” (Jn 20:26), unable even to convince Thomas, the only one absent,
of the resurrection. What does Jesus do in the face of this timorous lack of
belief? He returns and, standing in the same place, “in the midst” of the
disciples, he repeats his greeting: “Peace be with you!” (Jn 20:19, 26). He
starts all over. The resurrection of his disciple begins here, from this faithful
and patient mercy, from the discovery that God never tires of reaching out to
lift us up when we fall. He wants us to see him, not as a taskmaster with whom
we have to settle accounts, but as our Father who always raises us up. In life
we go forward tentatively, uncertainly, like a toddler who takes a few steps
and falls; a few steps more and falls again, yet each time his father puts him
back on his feet. The hand that always puts us back on our feet is mercy: God
knows that without mercy we will remain on the ground, that in order to keep
walking, we need to be put back on our feet.
You may
object: “But I keep falling!”. The Lord knows this and he is always ready to
raise you up. He does not want us to keep thinking about our failings; rather,
he wants us to look to him. For when we fall, he sees children needing to be
put back on their feet; in our failings he sees children in need of his
merciful love. Today, in this church that has become a shrine of mercy in Rome
At one time, the Saint, with satisfaction, told Jesus that
she had offered him all of her life and all that she had. But Jesus’ answer
stunned her: “You have not offered me the thing is truly yours”. What had that
holy nun kept for herself? Jesus said to her with kindness: “My daughter, give
me your failings” (10 October 1937). We too can ask ourselves: “Have I given my
failings to the Lord? Have I let him see me fall so that he can raise me up?”
Or is there something I still keep inside me? A sin, a regret from the past, a
wound that I have inside, a grudge against someone, an idea about a particular
person... The Lord waits for us to offer him our failings so that he can help
us experience his mercy.
Let us go
back to the disciples. They had abandoned the Lord at his Passion and felt
guilty. But meeting them, Jesus did not give a long sermon. To them, who were
wounded within, he shows his own wounds. Thomas can now touch them and know of
Jesus’ love and how much Jesus had suffered for him, even though he had
abandoned him. In those wounds, he touches with his hands God’s tender
closeness. Thomas arrived late, but once he received mercy, he overtook the
other disciples: he believed not only in the resurrection, but in the boundless
love of God. And he makes the most simple and beautiful profession of faith:
“My Lord and my God!” (v. 28). Here is the resurrection of the disciple: it is
accomplished when his frail and wounded humanity enters into that of Jesus.
There, every doubt is resolved; there, God becomes my God; there, we begin to
accept ourselves and to love life as it is.
Dear
brothers and sisters, in the time of trial that we are presently undergoing, we
too, like Thomas, with our fears and our doubts, have experienced our frailty.
We need the Lord, who sees beyond that frailty an irrepressible beauty. With
him we rediscover how precious we are even in our vulnerability. We discover
that we are like beautiful crystals, fragile and at the same time precious. And
if, like crystal, we are transparent before him, his light – the light of mercy
– will shine in us and through us in the world. As the Letter of Peter said,
this is a reason for being “filled with joy, though now for a little while you
may have to suffer various trials” (1 Pt 1:6).
On this
feast of Divine Mercy, the most beautiful message comes from Thomas, the
disciple who arrived late; he was the only one missing. But the Lord waited for
Thomas. Mercy does not abandon those who stay behind. Now, while we are looking
forward to a slow and arduous recovery from the pandemic, there is a danger
that we will forget those who are left behind. The risk is that we may then be
struck by an even worse virus, that of selfish indifference. A virus
spread by the thought that life is better if it is better for me, and that
everything will be fine if it is fine for me. It begins there and ends up
selecting one person over another, discarding the poor, and sacrificing those
left behind on the altar of progress. The present pandemic, however, reminds us
that there are no differences or borders between those who suffer. We are all
frail, all equal, all precious. May we be profoundly shaken by what is
happening all around us: the time has come to eliminate inequalities, to heal
the injustice that is undermining the health of the entire human family! Let us
learn from the early Christian community described in the Acts of the Apostles.
It received mercy and lived with mercy: “All who believed were together and had
all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed
them to all, as any had need” (Acts 2:44-45). This is not some ideology: it is
Christianity.
In that
community, after the resurrection of Jesus, only one was left behind and the
others waited for him. Today the opposite seems to be the case: a small part of
the human family has moved ahead, while the majority has remained behind. Each
of us could say: “These are complex problems, it is not my job to take care of
the needy, others have to be concerned with it!”. St Faustina, after meeting
Jesus, wrote: “In a soul that is suffering we should see Jesus on the cross,
not a parasite and a burden... [Lord] you give us the chance to practice deeds
of mercy, and we practice making judgments” (Diary, 6 September 1937). Yet she
herself complained one day to Jesus that, in being merciful, one is thought to
be naive. She said, “Lord, they often abuse my goodness”. And Jesus replied:
“Never mind, don’t let it bother you, just be merciful to everyone always” (24
December 1937). To everyone: let us not think only of our interests, our vested
interests. Let us welcome this time of trial as an opportunity to prepare for
our collective future. Because without an all-embracing vision, there will be
no future for anyone.
Today the
simple and disarming love of Jesus revives the heart of his disciple. Like the
apostle Thomas, let us accept mercy, the salvation of the world. And let us
show mercy to those who are most vulnerable; for only in this way will we build
a new world.
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