The Day the Lord Made
Three times in today’s Psalm we cry out a victory shout: “His mercy endures forever.”
Truly we’ve known the everlasting love of God, who has come to us as our Savior. By the blood and water that flowed from Jesus’ pierced side (see John 19:34), we’ve been made God’s children, as we hear in today’s Epistle.
Yet we never met Jesus, never heard Him teach, never saw Him raised from the dead. His saving Word came to us in the Church—through the ministry of the apostles, who in today’s Gospel are sent as He was sent.
He was made a life-giving Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 15:45) and He filled His apostles with that Spirit. As we hear in today’s First Reading, they bore witness to His resurrection with great power. And through their witness, handed down in the Church through the centuries, their teaching and traditions have reached us (see Acts 2:42).
We encounter Him as the apostles did—in the breaking of the bread on the Lord’s day (see Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:10).
There is something liturgical about the way today’s Gospel scenes unfold. It’s as if John is trying to show us how the risen Lord comes to us in the liturgy and sacraments.
In both scenes it is Sunday night. The doors are bolted tight, yet Jesus mysteriously comes.
He greets them with an expression, “Peace be with you,” used elsewhere by divine messengers (see Daniel 10:19; Judges 6:23). He shows them signs of His real bodily presence. And on both nights the disciples respond by joyfully receiving Jesus as their “Lord.”
Isn’t this what happens in the Mass—where our Lord speaks to us in His Word, and gives himself to us in the sacrament of His body and blood?
Let us approach the altar with joy, knowing that every Eucharist is the day the Lord has made—when the victory of Easter is again made wonderful in our eyes.
St. Francis de Sales
First Sermon for Pentecost
Lord Jesus Christ, once again grant that of us, too, there may be but “one heart and mind” (Acts 4,32) for then there will be “a great calm” (Mk 4,39). My dear listeners, I exhort you to good will and kindness to one another and peace with all. For were we to have charity among ourselves, we would have both peace and the Holy Spirit. Let us undertake to become devout and pray to God… since the apostles persevered in prayer…
If we set ourselves to fervent prayer then the Holy Spirit will enter us and say: “Peace be with you! It is I; do not be afraid” (cf. Mk 6,50)… And what ought we to ask God for, my brethren? For all that is for his honor and the salvation of your souls and, in a word, for the help of the Holy Spirit: “Send forth your Spirit and they will be created” (Ps 104[103],30) – peace and tranquillity…
We are to ask for this peace so that the Spirit of peace may come down on us. We should give thanks to God, too, for all his blessings if we want him to grant us those victories that are the beginning of peace. And to obtain the Holy Spirit we should give thanks to God the Father for having first of all sent him upon our Head, Jesus Christ, who is our Lord and His Son… – for “from his fullness we have all received” (cf. Jn 1,16) – and for having sent him upon his apostles that through their hands they might pass him on to us.
We should give thanks to the Son: as God he sends the Spirit upon those who prepare themselves to receive him. But, most especially, we should thank him because, as man, he merited for us the grace of receiving this divine Spirit…
And how has Jesus Christ merited the Holy Spirit’s coming? When “bowing his head, he gave up his spirit” (Jn 19,30), for, when he gave breathed his last and handed over his spirit to the Father, he merited the Father’s sending his Spirit upon his mystical body.
St. Basil of Seleucia
Sermon for the Resurrection
While hiding in a house, the apostles see Christ; he entered, all the doors being shut. But Thomas, who was absent at that time…, shuts his ears and wants to open his eyes… He bursts out with his incredulity, hoping, in this way, his desire will be answered.
“My doubts are not going to disappear until I see him,” he says. “I shall put my finger in the marks of the nails and embrace this Lord of mine whom I long for so much. Let him reproach my lack of faith but let him satisfy me with sight of him. For now I am unbelieving but, when I see him, I shall believe. I shall believe when I clasp him in my arms and gaze on him. I want to see the holes in those hands that have healed the hands of Adam’s wrongdoing.
I want to see the side that cast out death from mankind’s side. I want to be my own witness to the Lord and another’s testimony is not enough for me. Your tales aggravate my impatience. The joyful news you bring does nothing but stir up my turmoil. I shall not be cured of this sickness unless I touch its medicine with my own hands.”
The Lord appeared again and dispelled both the sadness and the doubt of his disciple. What am I saying? He did not dispel his doubts, he fulfilled his expectation. He entered, all the doors being shut.
St. Peter Chrysologus
Sermon 31, 8th on the Resurrection of the Lord (PL 52, 427)
After the resurrection, as the Lord had entered when all the doors were shut (Jn 20,19), the disciples did not believe he had regained his body in reality but imagined that only his soul had returned under a bodily appearance, like the images that appear to people dreaming in their sleep. “They thought it was a ghost” (Lk 24,37)…
“Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet.” Look – that is to say, consider attentively. Why? Because what you are beholding is not a dream. Look at my hands and my feet since, as yet, you cannot look at my face with your bewildered eyes. Look at the wounds in my flesh since, as yet, you cannot see the works of God.
Behold the marks made by my enemies since, as yet, you cannot perceive the signs of God. Touch me so that your hand will give you proof since, so far, your eyes are blinded… Feel the holes in my hands, probe my side, reopen my wounds, for I cannot refuse to the faith of my disciples what I did not refuse to my enemies for my agony. Feel, feel…, seek even to my bones, that you may confirm the reality of my flesh and that these still open wounds may attest that it is truly I myself…
Why don’t you believe that I am risen who called several dead persons back to life before your eyes?… When I was hung on the cross, they taunted me, saying: “He saved others, he cannot save himself… Let him come down from the cross now and we will believe in him” (Mt 27,42).
Which is more difficult? To come down from the cross, tearing out the nails, or to come up from hell, treading death underfoot? Look, I have saved myself and, breaking the chains of hell, have come back up to the world above.
Pope Benedict XVI
Regina Caeli, April 15, 2012
Every year in celebrating Easter we relive the experience of the first disciples of Jesus, the experience of the encounter with him risen: the Gospel of John tells that they saw him appear in their midst in the Upper Room on the evening of the very day of the Resurrection, “the first day of the week”, and subsequently eight days later (Jn 20:19, 26).
That day, later called “the Lord’s Day”, was the day of the assembly of the Christian community which gathered for its own devotion, that is, to the Eucharist, a new form of worship which from the outset differed from the Judaic worship of the Sabbath. Indeed, the celebration of the Lord’s Day is a very strong proof of Christ’s Resurrection, for only an extraordinary and overwhelming event could have induced the first Christians to begin a form of worship that differed with regard to the Jewish Sabbath.
Then, as today, Christian worship is not only a commemoration of past events nor even a specific, inner mystical experience; rather, it is essentially an encounter with the Risen Lord who lives in the dimension of God beyond time and space, and yet becomes really present amidst the community, speaks to us in the Sacred Scriptures and breaks the bread of eternal life for us.
It is through these signs that we relive what the disciples experienced, that is, the event of seeing Jesus and at the same time of not recognizing him; of touching his body, a real body and yet free from earthly bonds.
What the Gospel says is very important: namely, that Jesus, in his two appearances to the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room, repeats several times the greeting: “Peace be with you” (Jn 20:19, 21, 26). Here, the traditional greeting with which people wish one another shalom, peace, becomes something new: it becomes the gift of the peace that Jesus alone can give because it is the fruit of his radical victory over evil.
The “peace” that Jesus gives to his friends is the fruit of the love of God which led him to die on the cross, to pour out all his blood, as a meek and humble lamb “full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).
For this reason Bl. John Paul II chose to call this Sunday after Easter, Divine Mercy, with a very specific image: that of Jesus’ pierced side from which blood and water flowed, according to the account of an eyewitness, the Apostle John (cf. Jn 19:34-37). However Jesus is now risen and the paschal Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist flow from him, who is alive: those who receive them with faith receive the gift of eternal life.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us accept the gift of peace which the Risen Jesus offers us, let us allow our hearts to be filled with his mercy! In this way, with the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who raised Christ from the dead, we too can bring these Easter gifts to others. May Mary Most Holy obtain this for us.
Pope Benedict XVI
Regina Caeli, April 11, 2010
This Sunday concludes the Octave of Easter. It is a unique day “made by the Lord”, distinguished by the outstanding event of the Resurrection and the joy of the disciples at seeing Jesus. Since antiquity this Sunday has been called in albis from the Latin name, alba, which was given to the white vestments the neophytes put on for their Baptism on Easter night and took off eight days later, that is, today. Venerable John Paul II entitled this same Sunday “Divine Mercy Sunday” on the occasion of the canonization of Sr Mary Faustina Kowalska on 30 April 2000.
The Gospel passage from St John (20: 19-31) is full of mercy and divine goodness. Is recounts that after the Resurrection Jesus visited his disciples, passing through the closed doors of the Upper Room. St Augustine explains that “the shutting of doors presented no obstacle to the matter of that body, wherein the Godhead resided.
He indeed could enter without their being opened, by whose birth the virginity of his mother remained inviolate” (In ev. Jo. 121, 4: CCL 36/7, 667); and St Gregory the Great added that after his Resurrection the Redeemer appeared with a Body by its nature incorruptible and tangible, but in a state of glory (cf. Hom. in Evang. 21, 1: CCL 141, 219). Jesus showed the signs of his Passion even to the point of allowing Doubting Thomas to touch him; but how can a disciple possibly doubt?
Actually God’s indulgence enables us to profit even from Thomas’ disbelief, as well as from the believing disciples. Indeed, in touching the Lord’s wounds, the hesitant disciple not only heals his own diffidence but also ours.
The visit of the Risen One is not limited to the space of the Upper Room but goes beyond it, to the point that all can receive the gift of peace and life with the “creative Breath”. In fact Jesus said twice to his disciples, “”Peace be with you”. And he added, “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you”.
Having said this he breathed on them, saying “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained”. This is the mission of the Church, eternally assisted by the Paraclete: to bear the Good News, the joyful reality of God’s merciful love, in order, as St John says, “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (20: 31).
Pope Benedict XVI
Regina Caeli, March 20, 2008
During the Jubilee of the Year 2000 the beloved Servant of God John Paul II established that throughout the Church the Sunday after Easter should be called Domenica in Albis and Divine Mercy Sunday.
This occurred contemporaneously with the canonization of Faustina Kowalska, a humble Polish Sister who was born in 1905 and died in 1938, a zealous messenger of the Merciful Jesus. Indeed, mercy is the central nucleus of the Gospel message; it is the very name of God, the Face with which he revealed himself in the Old Covenant and fully in Jesus Christ, the incarnation of creative and redemptive Love.
May this merciful love also shine on the face of the Church and show itself through the sacraments, in particular that of Reconciliation, and in works of charity, both communitarian and individual. May all that the Church says and does manifest the mercy God feels for man, and therefore for us.
When the Church has to recall an unrecognized truth or a betrayed good, she always does so impelled by merciful love, so that men and women may have life and have it abundantly (cf. Jn 10: 10). From divine mercy, which brings peace to hearts, genuine peace flows into the world, peace between different peoples, cultures and religions.
Like Sr Faustina, John Paul II in his turn made himself an apostle of Divine Mercy. In the evening of the unforgettable Saturday, 2 April 2005, when he closed his eyes on this world, it was precisely the eve of the Second Sunday of Easter and many people noted the rare coincidence that combined the Marian dimension – the first Saturday of the month – and the dimension of Divine Mercy.
This was in fact the core of John Paul II’s long and multi-faceted Pontificate. The whole of his mission at the service of the truth about God and man and of peace in the world is summed up in this declaration, as he himself said in Krakow-?agiewniki in 2002 when he inaugurated the large Shrine of Divine Mercy: “Apart from the mercy of God there is no other source of hope for mankind”.
John Paul II’s message, like St Faustina’s, thus leads back to the Face of Christ, a supreme revelation of God’s mercy. Constant contemplation of this Face is the legacy he bequeathed to us which we joyfully welcome and make our own.
In the coming days, on the occasion of the First World Apostolic Congress on Divine Mercy, there will be a special reflection on Divine Mercy. It will be held in Rome and will begin with Holy Mass at which, please God, I shall preside on Wednesday morning, 2 April, the third anniversary of the pious death of the Servant of God John Paul II.
Let us place the Congress under the heavenly protection of Mary Most Holy Mater Misericordiae. Let us entrust to her the great cause of peace in the world, so that God’s mercy may achieve what is impossible for human forces on their own and instil in hearts the courage for dialogue and reconciliation.
Pope Benedict XVI
Regina Caeli, April 23, 2006
This Sunday the Gospel of John tells us that the Risen Jesus appeared to the disciples, enclosed in the Upper Room, on the evening of the “first day of the week” (Jn 20: 19), and that he showed himself to them once again in the same place “eight days later” (Jn 20: 26). From the beginning, therefore, the Christian community began to live a weekly rhythm, marked by the meeting with the Risen Lord.
This is something that the Constitution on the Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council also emphasizes, saying: “By a tradition handed down from the Apostles, which took its origin from the very day of Christ’s Resurrection, the Church celebrates the Paschal Mystery every seventh day, which day is appropriately called the Lord’s Day” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 106).
The Evangelist further recalls that on the occasion of both his appearances – the day of the Resurrection and eight days later – the Lord Jesus showed the disciples the signs of the crucifixion, clearly visible and tangible even in his glorified Body (cf. Jn 20: 20, 27). Those sacred wounds in his hands, in his feet and in his side, are an inexhaustible source of faith, hope and love from which each one can draw, especially the souls who thirst the most for divine mercy.
In consideration of this, the Servant of God John Paul II, highlighting the spiritual experience of a humble Sister, St Faustina Kowalska, desired that the Sunday after Easter be dedicated in a special way to Divine Mercy; and Providence disposed that he would die precisely on the eve of this day in the hands of Divine Mercy.
The mystery of God’s merciful love was the centre of the Pontificate of my venerable Predecessor. Let us remember in particular his 1980 Encyclical Dives in Misericordia, and his dedication of the new Shrine of Divine Mercy in Krakow in 2002. The words he spoke on the latter occasion summed up, as it were, his Magisterium, pointing out that the cult of Divine Mercy is not a secondary devotion but an integral dimension of Christian faith and prayer.
May Mary Most Holy, Mother of the Church, whom we now address with the Regina Caeli, obtain for all Christians that they live Sunday to the full as “the Easter of the week”, tasting the beauty of the encounter with the Risen Lord and drawing from the source of his merciful love to be apostles of his peace.
Saint Augustine
Sermon 258 (SC 116, p.347f.)
“And God said: ‘Let there be light'” (Gn 1:3)
“This is the day the Lord has made” (Ps 118[117]:24). Call to mind what the world was like in the beginning: “Darkness covered the abyss while God’s Spirit swept over the waters. Then God said: ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness he called ‘night’” (Gn 1:2f.)… “This is the day the Lord has made.” It is the day the apostle Paul spoke about: “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord” (Eph 5:8)…
Isn’t it true to say that Thomas was a man, one of the disciples, one of the crowd so to speak? His brethren said to him: “We have seen the Lord”. But he said: “Unless I touch him, unless I put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” The evangelists bring you the news and you don’t believe it? The world believed but a disciple did not believe?… The day the Lord has made had not yet happened; darkness still covered the abyss, the depths of darkness of the human heart. Let him come who is the sign of day, let him come and, without anger, let him who brings healing patiently, gently say: “Come. Come, touch and believe. You declared that: ‘Unless I touch him, unless I put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’ Come, touch, put in your hand and do not be unbelieving but believe. I understand your wounds; it is for you I have kept my scars.”
In putting out his hand this disciples is able to bring his faith to full completion. Indeed, what is faith’s completion? Not to believe that Christ is only man, not even to believe that Christ is only God, but to believe that he is man and God… And so the disciple whom the Saviour granted to touch his bodily members and scars, cried out: “My Lord and my God.” He touched the man, he recognised the God. He touched the flesh, he turned towards the Word, for “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14). The Word permitted his flesh to be hung on the wood…; the Word permitted his flesh to be placed in the tomb. The Word raised up his flesh, showed it to the disciples’ face, offered it to their touch. They touched, they cried out: “My Lord and my God!”
This is the day the Lord has made!
