Divine Mercy Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons

Maesta Altarpiece: The Incredulity of Saint Thomas 1461 Duccio

April 7th 2024
Second Sunday of Easter

1. The challenge of Acts 4

I felt ashamed reading today's portion of scripture from Acts 4, it always has the capacity to make me very uncomfortable, but this year, perhaps because of the global situation of violence particularly in the Holy Land, the epidemic of poverty and deprivation here in the UK, and the extraordinary rise of a dangerous Christian alliance with extreme right wing politics in the USA and other regimes in Eastern Europe, it has managed to challenge my conscience in a focussed manner, and shaken me up a bit more by reminding me how very far off I am as a Catholic and a Christian from that picture of the early community.

Here it is: 'The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favour was accorded them all. There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need'. (Acts 4: 32-35) That is a mantra we should hold before us, because one of the things many who have do not do, is to share with those who have not!

The key to my mind lies in several words, 'one heart and mind', 'had everything in common' and 'distributed to each according to need'. Like a mantra they feed on the inner self and call us to adjust the balance of our lives as the Lord desires us to do. If only we could but try to share, hold back on our arrogance that places our views above another's, and in a practical way take care of the needy. If only we could try to make possession of our own gifts a joy to share, not to lock away. Yes, we can still be custodians of things, but there is a vast difference when they are opened to others, and isn't this what Christ does for us, to share and be open to ALL of us, distributing without any conditions mercy, love, forgiveness and joy of the Most High? In our turn let us try to share this joy a little more, and make our world a more merciful place.

2. Pascha is living today, with hope for the future

I know that like Lot's wife we cannot keep looking back, nor fall into the temptation of yearning for a mythical golden age that we then wish to reproduce. That way lies disaster, which is why this whole season of Pascha reminds us to look to the NOW of our days, and the hope that Christ's resurrection brings for the future. Today is called Thomas Sunday in the East, for the same Gospel we have today is proclaimed by them . To get one thing out of the way I must admit I am far from convinced we should call Thomas 'doubting Thomas', for reading and entering into the scriptural account of his questions to the other disciples about Jesus, who he missed seeing, I can well understand his reluctance to believe them. This isn't doubt, this is faith-seeking answers ! When remarkably Jesus makes a second appearance to the same company of fearful people, in order to show Thomas his wounds, I find nothing except a pragmatic and sensible approach on both sides. After all, would you actually believe the Apostles? Their track record had not been distinguished by any fearless acknowledgement of who Jesus is, instead they hid, denied him, ran away, went back to their old occupations, as with those disciples on the Emmaus road, travelled away despondent and lost.

3. Thomas is a sign of the merciful Christ even today

Not for me, Thomas is the one who pulls them together by going beyond their fear and tentative openness to the glory of Christ, what he does is make a huge, wonderful act of loving faith. For Thomas the risen Christ is not 'just the Lord' but '"My Lord and my God!"(Jn 20: 28) Thomas epitomises all of us who seek the Lord and desire proof or some kind of acknowledgement that 'He is risen', for he also calls from Jesus, not a reprimand, forget that tone of voice, its not there in the text, rather hear the words as a blessing for us who do not yet see Him fully. Thomas is the pragmatic seeker many of us are, and his gift is the blessing of Christ on all who struggle or truly search: 'Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."(Jn 20:29)

Let me share a personal illustration of Thomas at work in and with us. We have just lost a dear person in my village, John Cooper, he was a figure much loved, gentle in his manner, full of tales of his navy years in WWII, and known by most of us. He had just celebrated his 97th birthday and seemed indispensable and well equipped to face towards his 100th. His garden is beautiful, the sets laid out, the beds are dug, seeds sown. He was a good neighbour and had part-adopted one of my cats, who seemed to prefer his heated greenhouse and being 'Queen Bee' to sharing my house with her sister and a characterful young male cat called George. But I had the amusement of half-adopting a gentle old stray John had taken in, but who feeds well here with me. As happens John fell recently, and an old war wound got infected, he was taken in to hospital and as often happens things moved swiftly. He died yesterday April 5th several weeks after his 97th (or was it 96th) birthday. Sitting with another friend in his garden today, looking at the wonders of his small garden and talking to my cat, who has now to come home, I felt sad for the many things we shall miss about him.

But there is one lesson I think John shares with Thomas. I can hear his voice telling me that he didn't think he believed in God, yet he was always in Church for big occasions, open to the possibility of a creator who loved creation, as he and many others of us do, especially in closeness to people and animals. He had a welcome for what was to come, but accepted and lived for the day a deeper faith than mine I think!. In his own gentle, but forthright way, he always remembered those he had lost, especially in the tragedy of war but with a sense of friendship not lost but continued in memory. I sense that in his animals, friends, garden, love of music, company and an openness to the teachings of the Buddha on compassion he shared his possessions and riches with us. As I remember him with you, he teaches me in a truly humble way that the Lord has been very close to him and through him to so many of us, for through his life and all these things the hidden but refracted face of Christ appears. These are Christ's own true words to him as they are to so many of us : "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed". I am hopeful we shall greet each other as with so many in that new Eden of the Kingdom. I hope also this little sharing with you may awaken in you those you love and know who reveal the Risen Lord hidden but ever present!

. May he rest in peace, may he rise in glory!

Christ is risen! He is truly risen!

Lectio

Bede Griffiths on Prayer and Christ's presence

The mystery of Christ is the ultimate truth, the reality towards which all human life aspires. And this mystery is known by love. Love is going out of oneself, surrendering the self, letting the reality, the truth take over. It is not limited to any earthly object or person. It reaches out to the infinite and the eternal. This is contemplation. It is not something which we achieve for ourselves. It is something that comes when we let go. We have to abandon everything - all words, thoughts, hopes, fears, all attachments to ourselves or to any earthly thing, and let the divine mystery take possession of our lives. It feels like death and is a sort of dying. It is encountered with the darkness, the abyss, the void. It is facing nothingness - or as Augustine Baker, the English Benedictine mystic said, it is the "union of the nothing with the Nothing".

This is the negative aspect of contemplation. The positive aspect is, of course, the opposite. It is total fulfilment, total wisdom, total bliss, the answer to all problems, the peace which surpasses understanding, the joy which is the fullness of love. St Paul summed it up in the letter to the Ephesians - or whoever wrote that letter which is the supreme example of Christian gnosis: "I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may strengthen you with his spirit in the inner man: that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that being rooted and grounded in love, you may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and breadth and height and depth, and may know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Sonnet on St Thomas the Apostle by Malcolm Guite

We do not know… how can we know the way?"

Courageous master of the awkward question,

You spoke the words the others dared not say

And cut through their evasion and abstraction.

Oh doubting Thomas, father of my faith,

You put your finger on the nub of things

We cannot love some disembodied wraith,

But flesh and blood must be our king of kings.

Your teaching is to touch, embrace, anoint,

Feel after Him and find Him in the flesh.

Because He loved your awkward counter-point

The Word has heard and granted you your wish.

Oh place my hands with yours, help me divine

The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine.

Saint Faustina

Notebook 5

And when I stand at the foot of Your throne, the first hymn that I will sing will be one to Your mercy. Poor earth, I will not forget you. Although I feel that I will be immediately drowned in God as in an ocean of happiness, that will not be an obstacle to my returning to earth to encourage souls and incite them to trust in God's mercy. Indeed, this immersion in God will give me the possibility of boundless action.

Divine Mercy Sunday Links

Film: Love and Mercy - Faustina: www.indcatholicnews.com/news/38254

St Faustina and Divine Mercy: www.indcatholicnews.com/saint/288