Second Sunday of Easter
Sunday of Divine Mercy
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you…” (John 20:21)
With these words, the Lord makes the apostles to be apostles (the word in Greek literally means “one who is sent”). And what is their mission? What are the apostles sent to do? A large part of their mission is to bring the healing of God’s mercy to the bodies and souls of those Christ has loved so much as to redeem them by His blood. We see this mission in the people who are lined up along the roadside in Jerusalem and who are cured by the apostles; people who are so eager for the healing the apostles are sent to bring that they hope that at least Saint Peter’s shadow will fall upon them in their illness. (Acts 5:15)
Yet, there is more to Jesus’ mission of healing that He entrusts to the Apostles: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them and whose sins you retain are retained.” (John 20:22-23) Jesus gives the apostles the mission of healing souls, of bringing the mercy of God to hearts wounded by sin. The mission that the Son had from the Father, He now entrusts to the Church. Our Lord gives the apostles the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that it may be Christ’s own Spirit who works through them in this mission of mercy; so that it may be God who forgives sins through these instruments whom God has chosen.
Disciples that had sinned are the disciples Jesus chooses as instruments of forgiveness. It is the shadow of St. Peter the Denier that the sick seek to touch. It is St. Doubting Thomas that Christ will send to the ends of the earth to share the faith in the Resurrection. Although the enemy of our souls would often tempt us to focus on the imperfections of the instruments God has chosen, to despise them as weak and foolish, let us take a moment to acknowledge our own weaknesses. Let us in silence, acknowledge our own deep need for the forgiveness, the healing mercy that Christ has entrusted to these clay vessels. And let us rejoice that as the Risen Lord impacted the sight and sound and touch of the apostles of His Divine Mercy, so too, the Risen Lord has been pleased to come to our senses through the sacraments that He entrusted to those apostles for our salvation. “Let those who fear the LORD say, ‘His mercy endures forever.’” (Psalm 118:4)