We Must Dare
“None of the others dared to join them, but the people esteemed them.”
Acts 5:13
Every Second Sunday of Easter we celebrate “Divine Mercy Sunday” since Pope St. John Paul II instituted it in the year 2000. The readings for this Sunday is always the account of Jesus appearing to the Apostles behind locked doors not once by twice and where Thomas doubts the Lord. Why did Thomas doubt? Did he really not believe that the Lord has risen and would need to see His wounds and touch His side in order to believe or was it a gut reaction that was not really thought out? In the Gospels we read in several places of Thomas’s inquisitiveness. For example, he asks Jesus since they [the Apostles] did not know where He was going, how they could know the way, to which Jesus responded “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (cf. Jn 14:4-6). So sometimes our doubt may not really by an expression of a lack of faith but maybe one of confusion. Regardless, Jesus takes the time to listen and explain to Thomas, and He does the same for us, if only we would take time to listen.
The mercy of God is as vast and boundless as the sea, and our sins are put away from us as the far as the east is from the west (cf. Psalm 103:12). We need not allow the weight of our sins to keep us from turning to Jesus. We need not allow our doubts to keep us from asking Jesus the questions that trouble our hearts. We need not allow our shame and guilt to keep us from communion with God and His Church. In the first reading we hear how the people did not dare to join them [the Apostles] although they “esteemed them.”
Brothers and sisters, if we truly are an Easter People, then we must not be afraid to shout from the rooftops that Jesus Christ is Risen and that He is Lord! We must not be afraid to show that we are the beloved sons and daughters of a Father who sent His only begotten Son into the world so that may might die no more. We must DARE to proclaim boldly in our speech and action and by the way we live that we are Christians! We must dare live in a manner that accepts, believes, and shares in the divine mercy with which God envelops us. It is not enough to know it in our minds and in our hearts — we must do. We must take time to listen to the Lord so that we may truly receive this love and mercy and in turn share them with those around us. We must be doers of the faith. We must not only esteem the Christians who go before us, but rather be the Christians the Lord’s death and resurrection has allowed us to become.
Blessed Divine Mercy Sunday!
