Second Easter Sunday (7 April 2024)

1. Every year on the Second Sunday of Easter, this page from John's gospel is proposed for our reflection. It closes chapter 20 and constitutes one of the most important texts for the life of Christians: it is the fulfilment of God's entire saving mystery/plan. For the evangelist John, it is evident that with the resurrection of Christ, God has brought to completion the plan of salvation for humanity. This announcement that seals the paschal mystery takes place in Jerusalem, the city that has peace (Yerushalaïm) in its name: here Jesus announces and gives his peace. His first words are in fact "Shalom, Peace be upon you!" and he repeats this proclamation and gift of peace three times, in perfect fulfilment of all the messianic promises. 

The evangelist situates this event in the evening "of the first day of the week" and it is easy to catch the reference to the creation account, where the first day is called "the One Day" in the sense of first and unique because, in some way, it embraces all the others. Even today the Jewish people await the new day when God will renew the first creation, while for Christians the new day is already accomplished: it is Easter and every Sunday we renew the memory of it by celebrating it as the day of the new creation realised in Christ.  Finally, to complete his mission, Jesus on the first day gives his Spirit to the disciples as had been announced by the prophet Ezekiel: "I will pour out my Spirit on every creature" (Acts 2:17). He "breathed" on the apostles and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit".  The word "Spirit" translates the Hebrew word "ruah" which, in its primary sense means "breath", "air", "wind", "breath" and we find it in the book of Genesis when the Creator "breathed into the nostrils of man a breath of life" (Genesis 2:7) thus inscribing his name in our breath, in every breath of man. Now the Risen One inaugurates the new creation by blowing upon man his Spirit, "the first gift to believers" as proclaimed in the fourth Eucharistic prayer.  Jerusalem, the city of all promises is therefore also the city of the gift of the Holy Spirit in fulfilment of what the prophet Joel prophesied: "I will pour out my spirit upon every man...then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Joel 3:1, 5).

2. "As the Father has sent me, I also send you". With the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus entrusts the apostles with his own mission of peace and reconciliation: 'Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven; whose sins you do not forgive, they will not be forgiven'. There is a proclamation of strong hope that the world and all men need to hear and experience: God the Holy Trinity Infinite Mercy. This is why in the Jubilee Year 2000 Pope John Paul II, canonising St Faustina Kowalska, wanted the Sunday after Easter to be celebrated as 'Sunday of Mercy, Feast of Divine Mercy': this is the mystery of God, the central mystery of Christian faith and life. To speak of Mercy is to enter into the Holy Trinity: we have indeed been baptised in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and two are the pillars on which our faith is founded: the Holy Trinity and the incarnation of Christ. God the Trinity Father, Son and Spirit, Truth Love Mercy, decided to give Himself in the whole creation and even more so in man, whom He created in His own image and likeness. Original sin broke the divine plan, but God foresaw the difficulties of creatures in understanding His love and even the rejection of those who would replace Him, as the lost angel of light did, and He established from eternity the incarnation of the only-begotten Son to reactivate the channel of divine life between the Trinity and the universe.

3. It is always useful to point out that Divine Mercy, overflowing in the grace of forgiveness, is not only the work of God but it is God himself who incarnates, it is the whole Trinity that gives itself, and Easter is the centre of the work of redemption and the goal of salvation. By worshipping the mystery of Divine Mercy, man gives honour, praise and glory to the Trinity for the gift of Christ's Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection. Without, however, taking anything away from the centrality of Christ, whereby the work of redemption is accomplished in the flesh, it is right and important that thanks be given to God the Holy Trinity Mercy, who gave man Easter, the centre of the work of redemption.  Through baptism we have become a temple of God the Trinity, not just a piece of it. In the Gospel, Jesus himself repeatedly emphasises his union with the Father and the Holy Spirit: Heaven was rent asunder and God, One and Triune, in an incomprehensible way, descended in time with the incarnation of the Word who took on human form while remaining God. Let us adore Jesus Mercy incarnate! That God is Blessed Trinity/Infinite Mercy had already been intuited by some Church Fathers and confirmed by the experience of mystics of every century. However, it is at this time that God wants to be known, worshipped and loved as Trinity Mercy. In the heart of God everything 'Is', even 'attributes and affixes'. Mercy is God Himself, as Jesus says of Himself that He is not truthful or one who shows the way, but says of Himself that He is 'the Way, the Truth and the Life'. In God 'All is' so that today more than ever God wants to reaffirm that 'All in HIM IS'.  This is the heart of Saint Faustina Kowalska's message, and we understand it even more in the story of Maccio, who lives in Como and is linked to the diocesan Sanctuary Most Holy Trinity Mercy/Parish of Santa Maria Assunta in the city of Como. For me it was a true discovery that opens the soul to hope. In our time, the most serious temptation is that of man becoming God, but in Jesus it is God who became man. How can one fail to notice that often some, even among believers, emphasise His humanity so much that they reduce Christ to His humanity alone, thus debasing His divine nature, going so far as to reduce the Most Holy Eucharist to something symbolic that does not penetrate the human heart. On the contrary, Jesus' humanity is a divine gift that he wants to be recognised in the gift of the Incarnation. Trust in Christ the Redeemer leads and accompanies us to immerse ourselves with full abandonment in the heart of the Most Holy Trinity, praying as follows: "MY LORD AND MY GOD, FOR THE GIFT OF YOUR INCARNATION, PASSION, DEATH AND RESURRECTION, I CONTEMPT, ADORE AND PRAY: HOLY TRINITY, INFINITE MISERICORDY, I CONFIDE AND PRAY IN YOU".

4. In these times that are in many ways dark, where the 'kidnappers of the flock' multiply, the Lord continues to inspire the Church his Bride, and this must not make us feel alone and lost amidst the difficulties of the moment. God himself transmitted through St Faustina Kowalska, the request for the Feast of Divine Mercy. Now, however, God's request has become more pressing through the story of Maccio, and these words in particular are striking: "I AM speaks to his people! To his bride! To all men! But no one can say this clearly. Perhaps many will not believe, but they will know that Mercy Himself is speaking to His children who are going to the abyss and His Bride who is moving further and further away from her mission by not listening to my Vicar. I AM Mercy'. God the Holy Trinity asks that after Holy Week, the unique and unrepeatable Gift of the Lord, the entire week from Easter to "in albis" or Divine Mercy Sunday be consecrated as EASTER EUCHARISTIC WEEK. God wants to be put back at the centre and Eucharistic adoration is at the heart of this. In the Eucharist we contemplate the Gift of Jesus, but also the Gift of the Whole God, of the Trinity Mercy that involves itself with us, as Pope Benedict XVI reiterated in the post-synodal apostolic exhortation "Sacramentum Caritatis" (2007). From the Eucharist we can draw strength and inspiration for life here below, and above all we can find the meaning of this life in the perspective of eternal life, which was and is the reason why God did all this. For Jesus cares about salvation! May the Lord deeply convert us with the power of his love so that we may proclaim with our existence that God is Mercy. Christ has revealed the Mystery of God to us and asks His disciples, primarily priests, to imitate Him as they did at the Last Supper, offering themselves with Him in the Eucharistic sacrifice. And from the heart of the Eucharist may the message of God Mercy flow out for all: let no one be discouraged by his own wounds, his own falls, even serious ones, but rather always trust in God who IS Mercy.

+ Giovanni D'Ercole