St. Thomas More Chicago

This Sunday goes by several liturgical names.  It can be called The Second Sunday of Easter. More recently, Pope John Paul II designated this Sunday as Divine Mercy Sunday; for that very reason it was determined that he would be declared Blessed John Paul today, May the 1st, Mercy Sunday of 2011.  Significantly, this is the first time in a long time that Mercy Sunday falls during May, the month of Our Lady, to whom Blessed John Paul was totally devoted.  The date for this Sunday, as well as the date for all movable feasts, is determined by the yearly date of Easter.  As we all know, Easter was very late this year, falling on the next to last possible late date, April 24th.  The last time Easter fell on April 24th, Abraham Lincoln had not yet been elected president—1859.  The next time Easter will fall on April 24th will be 2095; Easter last fell on the latest possible date—April 25th—in 1943; Easter will next fall on April 25th in the year 2038.  So it seems providential that this year Easter fell on such a rare late date that it allowed Mercy Sunday—the date for Blessed John Paul’s beatification—to fall in the month of May—the month of Our Lady.  A traditional name for today, but not heard quite as often as in the past, calls this Sunday Low Sunday, to compare it with last Sunday, Easter Sunday.  The 1962 Missal refers to today at Dominica in albis, in Octava Paschae—Sunday in white, the Octave of Easter.  But no matter by what name this Sunday is called, every year on this Sunday after Easter Sunday, the whole Church in the Latin Rite hears this same Gospel reading which we have just heard.  In both the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman Rite, the Gospel reading is the same – which is to say that, if you attended a Mass today in what Pope Benedict has named the ordinary form, you would hear this very same Gospel: St. John’s account of the Lord’s appearance to the disciples on the first Easter night, how that night the apostle Thomas was absent, and then eight days later how Our Lord again appeared, and how this time Thomas was present.  From this Gospel, the phrase doubting Thomas has entered our English vocabulary.  But each year I cannot help but wonder if perhaps Thomas gets a little bit of a bad rap.  Thomas, after all, was not a traitor like Judas or a coward like Peter.  It was to Thomas’ honest question Lord, we do not know where You are going; how can we know the way? that Our Lord replied I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.  When Our Lord is determined to go to the grave of His dead friend Lazarus despite the danger from the Jews who wanted to stone Him, it was Thomas who said to the other disciples Let us also go, that we may die with Him.  And when Thomas finally sees Our Lord risen from the dead, he falls to his knees and utters those words of adoration we were taught to say at the elevation of the Sacred Host, My Lord and My God.  

Giving such great and well-deserved attention to the character of St. Thomas on what the Gospel today calls the eighth day—and because today is, after all, the eighth day—we might easily miss or overlook the earlier portion of this Gospel—the appearance of the Risen Lord to those apostles hiding in the upper room on the first Easter night.  We might therefore miss or overlook the important—the critical truth this Gospel proclaims to the Church and to all the world…whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained…. It is clear that the Sunday of Divine Mercy is a day dedicated in a particular way to the sacrament of reconciliation.  Today’s Gospel, coinciding with Divine Mercy Sunday, demonstrates the depth and breath of the mystery of divine mercy, as does the witness of adoration of Thomas the Apostle praying the words...My Lord and My God…at its conclusion.  This Gospel calls us to be numbered among those who though…have not seen, and yet have believed….  Likewise, this Gospel, The Octave of Easter, and The Feast of the Divine Mercy, each should move us to recall to ourselves how great a gift we have in the most precious sacrament of Penance, by which the blood of Christ is sacramentally poured out upon us and we are washed clean of our sins.  Here the Divine Mercy is most evident – for the good God accepts us the prodigals and clothes us as His own son once again!  Oh blood and water which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us, I trust in You!

Most of us here will probably know the necessity and the requirements of a worthy confession—most, but perhaps not every one here.  There may be someone here today who has not approached the sacrament of confession in a long time; what better occasion than on this Sunday of Divine Mercy?  But all of us (I dare say, myself included) always have room for great improvement in making a more worthy confession.  Today’s feast presents to us—and presents to every one in the Church—the occasion—the opportunity—to ask How might I make a good (or better) confession? How might a good confession today, lead me to an even better confession in the future?  There are three essential acts which are necessary to the penitent in the sacrament of Penance: contrition for sin, confession of sin, satisfaction for sin. Without these three elements, the confession will not be valid. 

Contrition for sin is the most necessary act of the penitent in approaching the sacrament.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: Among the penitent’s acts contrition occupies first place. Contrition is ‘sorrow of the soul and detestation for the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin again’.  We must have a true sorrow for our sins – not just for some sins, but for all sins.  However, we ought not be discouraged if we find that we still retain some attachment to sin; we must simply desire to be free of that attachment, repent of that attachment, and ask the Lord for His mercy.  Indeed, it will be enough if only we are sorry that we are not more sorry—if only we wish we were truly sorry; to desire a true sorrow is already an act of true contrition, though that contrition remains imperfect.

It is necessary to confess our sins to the priest.  Again, the Catechism teaches: Confession to a priest is an essential part of the sacrament of Penance: ‘All mortal sins of which penitents after a diligent self-examination are conscious must be recounted by them in confession’.  Mortal sins must be confessed in kind and number—hence, in a particular case, it would not be enough simply to state, I have murdered; we must state, I have committed abortion five times.  Likewise, I have not prayed as I should would not suffice when we should say, I have skipped Mass on three Sundays through my own fault.  On the other hand, it is also worth noting that some (at least venial) sin must be confessed for a valid reception of the sacrament.  Too often in confession I hear the words I have nothing to confess (I never have been able to say those words myself).  If no sin is confessed, absolution cannot be given.  Some actual sin must be confessed.  Moreover, it is permissible (and even advisable) to confess previously absolved sins either generally (I am sorry for all my sins against charity) or even specifically (I am sorry for having hated my husband, or wife).  One must always be honest in confessing one’s sins, though one need not go into unnecessary or extreme detail. You cannot say I was uncharitable to my neighbor—true, but not the whole truth if what you mean is that you murdered your neighbor.

The principal means of satisfaction for sin is the accomplishment of the penance imposed upon us by the priest. This penance must be agreed to by the penitent—and, if the penance seems either too great or too small, the penitent is free to ask the confessor for a different penance (however, the priest is not necessarily obliged to comply with the request).  If the penance is not accepted—if the penitent does not resolve to complete the penance—the sacrament will be invalid.  If the penance is not completed, this must be confessed during the next confession (which should be sooner rather than later).  In addition to the penance given, it is necessary to restore any harm which our sins have caused to others—this applies especially to sins like stealing (where the money or goods must be repaid according to the penitent’s ability) and calumny (where the person’s good reputation must be restored as far as is reasonably possible).

It is no secret that two-thirds of American Catholics are such mostly in name only, perhaps hedging their bets just in the event that the Lord is risen just happens to turn out to be true, engaging themselves in what is called Pascal’s wager, hedging their lives on a wager that Our Lord is truly risen.  But quite apart from the question of belief, most American Catholics are non-practicing.  Just about every family, mine included, has this kind of Catholic.  And some Catholics who are marginally more active seem to have learned about faith and morals from what the late comic Flip Wilson used to call The Church of What’s Happening Now, rather than from the Church of Rome or even from Our Lord Himself, since we cannot know Christ without knowing His Bride the Church, so much are they one body, as we learn from the Apostle Paul.  Such people have been catechized, not by the catechism, but by the culture, as if it has always and everywhere been held beyond any dispute that God is love, and so He therefore must accept everything that a postmodern American progressive accepts, and that God is getting really tired of bishops and picky priests and deacons and pushy laity who repeat and insist upon His actual teachings.  The dearth of penitents approaching the sacrament of Penance is perhaps the clearest evidence of this.

If Catholics really believe what St. Thomas said when he fell to his knees – My Lord and My God – then the witness of Catholics to Our Lord and their witness to His Church would be identical.  If we do not know His Church, we cannot know Him, since the Church is His Body.  If we do not love His Church, we cannot love Him, for the Church is His Body.  If we take exception to what His Church teaches, then we take exception to Him, for the Church is His Body.  In having His Church, you have Him, which means you have everything that ultimately matters.  Because Jesus and His Church are one, we may get too used to having Him with us all the time.  We may not understand what it would mean if we lost the Church: we would thus lose Our Lord.  It is when things seem to be falling apart, when the world seems to be going out the door backwards, and then we remember that, in having the Church, we have Our Risen Lord, and so we become grateful, thankful, for the bedrock that He and His Church are to our entire lives.  Our going to bed, out getting up, our eating, our time with friends, our work, our catastrophes, our joys – our entire lives have meaning only because Our Lord is Risen and His Church is His Risen Body.  The Church, being His Body, is both the Source and the Instrument of His Divine Mercy.  If our faith can at all times be credible – if our lives will simply always witness and deliver to others that message – that in our having His Church we have Jesus – then the world will have reason enough to say to Jesus, in adoration, with St. Thomas, My Lord and My God, and to repeat the message of The Divine Mercy: Jesus, I trust in You.