Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once told his television audience about
an experience he had as a young priest while serving at a parish in
New York City.
“On duty” one day—which
meant being available to respond to emergencies for twenty four
hours—Fr.
Sheen was called and asked to visit a young woman named Kitty, who
was dying. What Father Sheen didn’t know at the time was that
Kitty hadn’t been bringing in enough money from “walking the
streets,” so her husband poisoned Kitty. She was now dying
from the poison.
When Father Sheen arrived at Kitty’s apartment, what he beheld was
one of the filthiest places he had ever seen. Upon entering
Kitty’s bedroom, Father Sheen asked Kitty if she wanted to make her
peace with God. Kitty told Father Sheen that she couldn’t.
Kitty was what she termed “the worst girl” in New York City.
Without skipping a beat, Father Sheen told Kitty she wasn’t the
worst girl in New York City. The “worst girl,” Father Sheen
said, would believe she was the “best girl.”
After relating to Kitty some parables of Jesus’ love and forgiveness
of sinners, she agreed to go to confession. Following her
confession, Father Sheen anointed Kitty. Quite inexplicably, she
recovered.
Yes, Archbishop Sheen noted, Kitty’s physical healing was
miraculous. But, even more importantly, he said, Kitty’s spiritual
healing was miraculous.
Why?
Following Kitty’s recovery, she became an apostle to the people
among whom she had previously worked—the prostitutes and their
johns—and would send them to visit Father Sheen. The young priest
knew Kitty had sent them because they would come to him and say,
“Father, I am the person Kitty told you about.” That was
“code” language for
their sin and indicated their desire to “make their peace with God.”
Today’s
“code”
word is “mercy.”
In Latin and for the Church, misericordia begins with an
experience of “miseria” or “the condition of great sorrow or
distress” of the “cordia” or heart. This “pain in the heart”
then impels the individual who experiences it to have the
“disposition to show compassion or to forgive.”
Understood this way, mercy is not simply something someone
receives. It also is something someone gives. Or, to use the words
of Blessed Pope John Paul II, “you cannot give what you have not
experienced yourself.”
In today’s gospel, Jesus appears to his disciples twice, offering
them the gift of peace: “Peace be with you,” Jesus said.
Upon hearing that statement, we oftentimes focus upon Jesus’
soothing words. But, in doing so, we overlook what the disciples
feared upon seeing the Risen Lord. Remember, they had just three
days earlier “dumped and ran” for fear they might have to suffer the
same fate they knew was awaiting Jesus. Imagine what surely must
have been going through their minds when Jesus broke through those
doors which had been barred shut, namely, the judgment Jesus could
levy against each and every one of them for their cowardice and
betrayal!
Yet, instead of rendering a judgment and exacting a humiliating
price—a matter of justice—but because his heart was filled with the
“condition of one in great sorrow or distress”—a matter of
mercy—Jesus said, “Peace be with you.” And, with that
statement, Jesus freed his disciples of their sins of cowardice and
betrayal.
It shouldn’t be difficult for any one of us to imagine the sense of
relief the disciples experienced upon hearing those words, because
each of us knows exactly what the disciples were experiencing before
Jesus spoke those words. In one way or another, all of us have been
cowards and all of us have betrayed other people, perhaps a spouse,
a family member, friend, employer, and the like. Rather than do
what courage demanded, we folded up like cheap tents in a storm’s
raging winds. Rather than state the truth, we gave excuses so as to
avoid having to “take the medicine” or “face the music.”
In doing so, all of us have personally experienced and know what it
means to live in fear of “being found out.” Or, worse yet, when we
have been found out, the painful and humiliating shame that comes
when they suddenly appeared before us. Bad enough is knowing
that we have been found out; worse yet is knowing that someone else
knows the truth.
Or, so we wrongly think.
Reflecting back on that scene in the upper room, Jesus teaches his
disciples a radically different way of life that has the power of
“make straight all of those crooked ways” we’ve made of our lives.
Because Jesus loved his disciples, he knew the state of their
souls. Yes, they had acted in a cowardly way and had betrayed him
as well. But, Jesus knew his disciples weren’t really cowards nor
were they really betrayers. What had happened is that the disciples
allowed fear to seize hold of them and to imprison them within its
strong grip. The disciples needed to be released from their sin if
they were to become the people Jesus knew each of them to really be.
That is
why Jesus said
“Peace be with
you.”
That’s one dimension of mercy, misericordia, a heart filled
with the “condition of one in great sorrow or distress” that has the
power to liberate people from the fear in which they live due to
sin. It’s an experience we all know in a very personal way which
explains why so many of us don’t like to go to confession as well as
why so many of us don’t go to confession or haven’t gone for years
and perhaps even decades. Instead, we live imprisoned by fear,
namely, the fear of being known and judged by others for the bad
choices we have made.
But, the story in today’s gospel didn’t end there because Jesus also
taught his disciples about the second dimension of mercy when he
said: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you…Receive the Holy
Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins
you retain are retained.” The “pain in the heart” that is the
hallmark of mercy impels the individual who experiences it to have
the “disposition to show compassion or to forgive.”
For a disciple, then, mercy is not simply something one receives.
It also is something one must give to others.
That scene in the upper room when Jesus first confronts his
disciples reminds all of us that—like the disciples who were
gathered in that room—we wrongly believe that “being found
out” and that others will know the bad choices we have made is the
most difficult aspect being forgiven. No, the most difficult aspect
of being forgiven is to be as lavishly generous in forgiving others
as Jesus was lavishly generous in forgiving his disciples. How
hypocritical it would be to desire and to receive forgiveness only
to turn around and not be equally generous in giving that gift to
others!
Jesus gave his disciples the power to perform what the philosopher
Hannah Arendt called the only miracle that human beings are capable
of performing: the power to forgive sins. This great gift that
Jesus entrusted to his disciples—the freedom to offer Divine Mercy
to others—is not simply to be used to free others from the grip of
fear which is the consequence of sin. It is also given for the good
of the community because, as we free others from sin, they now
possess the freedom to become the person we know them to be. That
is why we experience that
“pain in the heart.” Lavishly forgiving others
can only strengthen the community that is friendship, the community
that is marriage, the community that is family life, the community
that is the school and workplace, and, ultimately, the community
that is the Kingdom of God that we can make present here and now,
“on Earth, as it is in heaven,” by offering others the gift of
Divine Mercy.
Jesus’ mission involved reconciling all of us to God our Father.
The experience of Divine Mercy which Jesus lavished so generously
upon his disciples in the upper room—a heart filled with the
“condition of great sorrow or distress”—requires his disciples
to show Divine Mercy as they forgive others. As Jesus’ disciples in
this generation, we continue Jesus’ saving mission not simply as we
experience Divine Mercy, but more importantly, as we lavish it
generously upon others.
How your family
might celebrate the Easter Season:
Easter is so important that it cannot be celebrated in just one,
single day. To celebrate Easter appropriately, the Church
takes fifty days (forty days leading to the Ascension and ten days
leading to Pentecost Sunday, fifty days that culminate on what used
to be called "Quinquagesimea Sunday"). These are the days that
constitute the entire "Easter Season."
Here are four
simple ways you might celebrate the entire Easter Season with your
family:
1. Place a white pillar candle in the
center of your kitchen table. Each night before dinner, assign
a member of your family to light the candle and to recall
what a person said or did that day to reveal the Risen Lord.
As part of the blessing prayer, give thanks to the Lord for the gift
of that person.
2.
Take a daily walk around the neighborhood. Identify one sign
of new life each day. After completing the walk, sit down
together as a family in the living room or family room and relate
each sign to the new life that God has given all of us in the
resurrection of His only begotten Son.
3. Invite an estranged family member,
relative, or friend (or a family member, relative, or friend who
hasn't been to visit for a while) to dinner each of the Sundays of
the Easter season. Before the prayer of blessing over the
food, read a resurrection appearance where Jesus says to his
disciples, "Peace be with you." Following the blessing of the
food, offer one another the sign of peace before partaking of the
meal.
4. In preparation for the Solemnity
of Pentecost, have each member of the family on Easter Sunday write
down on a piece of paper a gift of the Holy Spirit that he or she
needs in order to become a more faithful disciple. Fold and
place these pieces of paper in a bowl in the center of the kitchen
table. At dinner each evening, pray the "Prayer of the Holy
Spirit" to send for these gifts upon the members of the family so
that your family will become a light to the world. Then,
before the prayer of blessing over the dinner on Pentecost Sunday,
burn the pieces of paper to call to mind that the gifts have already
been given in the Sacrament of Confirmation. The challenge is
now to live out those gifts in the ordinary time of our daily lives.
Easter is an event that
happens each and every day. During the fifty days of the
Easter season, in particular, you and your family can prepare to
make Easter happen each and every day of your lives by "practicing"
these simple exercises which connect Jesus' risen life to yours as
well.
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