How beautiful that Divine Mercy Sunday is now – the Sunday after Easter. God remains triumphant! Such joy we experience in the Easter season! We have been praying, fasting and almsgiving for 40 days and are now rejoicing in the resurrection of Christ. Yet we need to be reminded again, only 7 days after the resurrection, of God’s abundant mercy and love for us. The path to heaven has been laid out and our human nature leads us astray, needing to be constantly called back to Christ.
Something that stands out to me about our Gospel reading today is that “Doubting Thomas” does not come to believe in Christ until he touches His wounds. Jesus overcame the power of death! Certainly some nail holes and a spear gash would be simple to fix in comparison. So why would God choose to keep them? Perhaps for Thomas alone was enough reason – that he would believe and spread the Gospel for all to know Christ, love Christ and serve Christ.
The wounds can be a visual representation for us of our sin and continuous need for mercy. They are a way for us to look inward on our own hurt and sin in order to see God’s mercy and love poured out for us. Christ bore these wounds because we needed Him to in order to believe in His love and mercy. When we receive the love and mercy of the Father, we should not expect our outward wounds to disappear either, but rather use them to bring others to believe as Christ did for Thomas. In the same way, when we interact with others, become aware of their wounds that we may touch them and come to believe that they too are abundantly loved by the Father.
O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the heart of Jesus as a font of mercy for us, I trust in you!
