Saint Gertrude Parish - Lasne

HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS

Last Sunday, we celebrated the resurrection of the Master. Today, we witness the resurrection of the disciple. A week has passed, a week that the disciples, despite having seen the Risen Lord, spent in fear, "with the doors locked" (Jn 20:26), unable even to convince the only absent one, Thomas, of the resurrection. What does Jesus do in the face of this fearful unbelief? He returns, he takes the same position, "in the midst" of the disciples, and repeats the same greeting: "Peace be with you!" (Jn 20:19, 26). He starts all over again. The resurrection of the disciple begins here, from this faithful and patient mercy, from the discovery that God never tires of reaching out to us to lift us up from our falls. He wants us to see him this way: not as a boss to whom we must answer, but as our Father who always lifts us up. In life, we move forward tentatively, like a child learning to walk but falling. A few steps and he falls again; he falls and falls again, and each time his father picks him up. The hand that lifts us up is always mercy: God knows that without mercy, we remain on the ground, that to walk, we need to be helped back to our feet.

And you might object: "But I never stop falling!" The Lord knows this and is always ready to lift you up. He doesn't want us to dwell endlessly on our falls, but rather to look to Him who, in our falls, sees children to lift up, in our misery, sees children to love with mercy. Today, in this church, now a shrine of mercy in Rome, on this Sunday that Saint John Paul II dedicated to Divine Mercy twenty years ago, let us welcome this message with confidence. Jesus said to Saint Faustina : "I am love and mercy itself; there is no misery that can compare with my mercy" (Diary, September 14, 1937). Once, the Saint told Jesus, with satisfaction, that she had offered her whole life, everything she possessed. But Jesus' response overwhelmed her: "You have not offered me what truly belongs to you." What had this holy nun kept for herself? Jesus gently said to her, "Daughter, give me your misery" (October 10, 1937). We too can ask ourselves: "Have I given my misery to the Lord? Have I shown him my falls so that he might lift me up?" Or is there something I still keep to myself? A sin, remorse about the past, a wound I carry within me, resentment toward someone, an opinion about a certain person. The Lord waits for us to bring him our miseries, so that he may reveal his mercy to us.

Let's return to the disciples! They had abandoned the Lord during the Passion and felt guilty. But Jesus, when he met them, didn't give long sermons. To those wounded inwardly, he showed his wounds. Thomas could touch them and discovered love; he discovered how much Jesus had suffered for him, the one who had abandoned him. In these wounds, he experienced firsthand the loving closeness of God. Thomas, who had arrived late, when he embraced mercy, surpassed the other disciples: he believed not only in the resurrection, but in the boundless love of God. And he offered the simplest and most beautiful confession of faith: "My Lord and my God!" (v. 28). This is the resurrection of the disciple: it is accomplished when his fragile and wounded humanity enters into that of Jesus. There, doubts vanish, there God becomes my God, there one begins again to accept oneself and to love one's own life.