Word to the Wise
Sunday, April 3, 2016 - 2nd Sunday of Easter - C
[Acts 5:12-16; Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19; John 20:19-31,203]"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." [John]
The story of "Doubting Thomas" and the later celebration of the feast of Pentecost with its popular image of the tongues of fire reported in the Acts of the Apostles can overshadow the way the Gospel of John reports the same gift of the Spirit. Today we have that version of the event.
Much of the Gospel of John pivots around the central fact that Jesus is the one sent by God. "This is the work of God: to believe in the one whom he has sent." In today's gospel, Jesus says, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." The mission is clearly one of God's mercy: "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them...." We must not be too quick to say, "Well, that's the job of those who are ordained to hear confessions in the Sacrament of Reconciliation." The sacrament as we know it did not take the form we use now for centuries. Mercy is the task of us all, as Pope Francis continually reminds us. For all of us it is not a matter of "giving mercy" as in the sacrament as it is in "being merciful" to those who are wounded by sin, either their own or that of others.
At parish missions and on retreats, I try to remind the participants (and myself) that our baptism commits us to mercy and forgiveness. We can look at all the relationships we have to others, whether they be personal or professional, or even political, and ask how merciful we are in those relationships. That can give us a taste of the depth of the challenge. If Jesus has sent us as "missionaries of mercy," we have a lot of work to do. The Sunday of Divine Mercy reminds us that we are God's workers. AMEN