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O Soul Trust Your God, the Victor over Death and Sin

Homily
Divine Mercy Sunday, April 15, 2007, Year C

St. Joseph Parish, Detroit

In 1938, a nun young of 32 years died of tuberculosis. She lived the hidden life of a cloister, and did countless penances and acts of charity which will go untold until the day of the universal judgment. Under obedience to her spiritual director, she spent the last four years of her life writing down the revelations our Lord Jesus Christ had given her, resulting in hundreds of pages, as a massive letter to humanity, an appeal from God to man to trust in his Divine Mercy. She was Saint Faustina, canonized April 30, 2000.

Today is the second Sunday of Easter, also named Divine Mercy Sunday, and so we have gathered to hear the sacred scriptures preached and taught, and to feed our souls on the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. This year, on all the Sundays of Easter, we will read select passages from the sublime book of Revelation. Today’s readings, from chapter one, give us all we need to confide infinitely in Divine Mercy.

The author, the Apostle John, has been persecuted and banished to the island Patmos.[1] The first thing he shares with us is that he “shares with us the tribulation.” For one cannot be one with Christ without sharing in his sufferings, humiliations and persecutions.

The other person in the passage is, of course, Jesus the Lord. John describes his white robe and his golden sash, all of which has meaning. He uses the expression, “Son of Man,” as well. “The expression ‘son of man’ originates in Daniel 7:14, where, as here, it refers to someone depicted as Judge at the end of time. The various symbols used indicate his importance. His ‘long robe’ shows his priesthood[2]; the golden [sash], his kingship[3]; his white hair, his eternity[4]; his eyes ‘like a flame of fire’ symbolize his divine wisdom[5]; and his bronze feet his strength and stability.”[6] John is indeed speaking to and hearing God himself, Jesus, the Mediator, the Redeemer, the Risen one.

So what does the Son of God have to say? He offers a revelation of who he is. First, he says, “I am first and the last,”[7] and so he gives purpose to the meaning of the time of our lives. Pope John Paul II said, “The Christ-event pervades the passage of each one of us. It is with Christ that we pass through time, going in the same direction that he has taken: towards the Father.”[8] And so God reveals to us the meaning of our lives on earth.

He says, “[I am] the living one,”[9] to St. John, who tells us in the verse just before, “I fell down at his feet as though dead.”[10] So the living one spoke to the dead one, as God speaks to all men who are dead in sin. His touch restored life to the dead one, and so too Jesus’ touch, that of grace, that of communion to the properly disposed soul, will bring life where there is death. Therefore, hope, oh sinner, in the touch of the Son of Man, and he will bring you life. Do not put your hope elsewhere, for he alone is the living one!

Jesus continues, “I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore!”[11] See the peace Jesus exudes, and the power? He does not fear death. Men, however, fear death; except the saints, who long for it. Men fear death because they flee sickness. They lament that their lives are small and seemingly insignificant. They enter into distress because history will bury them and probably forget them. They dread the separation of their body and soul, because they love their bodies. And some fear death because they fear judgment. Do you want to know the signs of men who fear death? They chase after money and fame, after pleasures and food, after vanity and power; and all this is because man hates death. Jesus does not fear death. He freely took death upon himself, when he had the power to escape it. And after he died, he lived again. He shows us that death is not an end, but a transformation. And those who die in Christ’s mercy will live forever, even in the flesh after the universal resurrection.

Finally Jesus says something mighty. “I hold the keys to death and hell.”[12] This year, on Holy Saturday, just nine days ago, Pope Benedict XVI brought to mind the words of Psalm 23, “Lift up your heads, O gates; be lifted up, O ancient doors!”[13] He comments this verse, saying, “The gates of death are closed, no one can return from there.  There is no key for those iron doors.  But Christ has the key.  His Cross opens wide the gates of death, the stern doors.  They are barred no longer.  His Cross, his radical love, is the key that opens them.  The love of the One who, though God, became man in order to die – this love has the power to open those doors.  This love is stronger than death.”[14]

Since God is stronger than death, then he is stronger than sin, for death came from the first sin. And so he tells the apostles, after the resurrection, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”[15] Therefore, as the Church infallibly teaches and constantly practices, the Apostles, the Bishops their successors, and the priests of the Church free men from their sins in baptism and in confession, and in a particular way with extreme unction.

Who can hear the teachings of the scripture, interpreted by the Church with truth and power, and fail to confide in Divine Mercy? Yet only the humble can open their hearts to the power of his mercy, for they are able to admit their sinfulness and resist the deceptions of countless demons.

Brothers and sisters, call upon the one who is the first and last, and he will sanctify your lives. Call on the one who lives, you who are dead by sin, and he will raise you from the dead, first in soul by cleansing you from sin, and then in the flesh at the resurrection at the end of time. Beg the one who was once dead, but lives forever, to free you from the fear of death, and to set you free from the attachment to things that pass and die. For Jesus has the key to eternal life, and it is the cross. Embrace the cross of Jesus, oh souls, and live forever in the community of the saved. Amen.