The Unfathomable Divine Mercy and the ‘Doubting’ then believing St. Thomas
It is hard to imagine how St. Thomas must have felt on that eighth day of Resurrection when the other apostles had told him they had seen Jesus, risen and alive. His reply in today’s Gospel of John passage (Divine Mercy Sunday Gospel) sheds some light on the anger and hurt filling his heart, as he stubbornly protests believing in Jesus’ resurrection until he could see and touch the wounds from the crucifixion.
The week he spent wrestling with his own heart, and the testimonies of the other apostles, perhaps wore down his stubbornness enough so that he was present the following Sunday when Jesus appeared again. He would not have remained with the apostles if he absolutely refused to believe. Somewhere in his heart, he was still hopeful. Yet his puzzlement of Jesus going back into harm’s way to Jerusalem is voiced in an earlier Lenten gospel we covered: In the plans of Jesus to go visit Lazarus’ family in Bethany (2 miles from Jerusalem), Thomas protests at first of these plans of the Master. But Jesus insists it is to be. Do remember Thomas’ words of acceptance in that moment? He says, “Then let us all go and die with Him.” Perhaps it was at that moment that Thomas felt overwrought in a Savior’s plans to die for us all poor sinners. It was too much to ask Jesus to do; it wasn’t fair. Our own sins of the world are too many. Plus, can’t the traveling ministry just keep going on with The Lord? Why must it so early on come to its end?
After Jesus was crucified, Thomas must have been mortified to have realized how it had all truly come to pass, of how God came to be a sacrifice for us. In the Last Supper, too, Jesus had instituted a new Passover rite in His memory—showing how the Savior saw all that would transpire over the rest of that Thursday up to the Cross. Jesus had said at least three official times to them that He would die, but it didn’t register enough with them. On Good Friday, it hit like a thud for Thomas the apostle. And he just disappeared from the apostle’s company, for perhaps a whole week.
I wonder if one of the other apostles had gone and found Thomas, in wherever he was hiding out in his grief and bewilderment. I wonder if that apostle had tried to rekindle the memory of Thomas: Don’t you remember that when the Master predicted His own looming death that He also predicted His rising?! Come and see.
Isn’t that the same for all of us, especially when we are faced with the crosses of life? Can we withdraw, or just not want to deal squarely with what is so uncomfortable or trying? Yes, surely.
Suffering can be downplayed or dismissed, but there is nothing simple, easy, or glamorous about it, no matter what it is. There is true ugliness in our world and we all have come face to face with it, in one way or another, but even in our moments of deepest agony or turmoil, there is something in us that still clings to hope.
It is in this place that St. Thomas encounters the Risen Lord. Jesus could have appeared to St. Thomas and berated him for his unbelief, possibly sending him away from the apostles for his hardness of heart. But, rather than exercise Divine Justice—which is Jesus’ right as God—Jesus abundantly pours Divine Mercy upon him. Jesus instructs Thomas to touch the wounds of the crucifixion, to touch the nail marks and place his hand in Jesus’ side. Beyond proving to Thomas that he did indeed rise from the dead, Jesus is meeting Thomas in his suffering of disbelief, confusion and pain, and showing Thomas that he has taken that suffering upon Himself. Jesus knows his pain intimately and has not dismissed it or punished Thomas for it. In making it his own, Jesus recreates Thomas’ heart, filling him with new life.
We can say that there is more that is an unwritten part of the Thomas hide-out story. His disappearance is not all bad in action; and if we would have seen that time for him as one of his re-gathering of himself. He maybe saw himself as to be a burden to the others, like a weight of doubt they did not need. He may have thought it a favor to do.
But Thomas does not to get to the Risen part of the Jesus’ story.
We all do. It’s in all the literature of hope and in art—the coming on up for the rising. The turning of ashes to wreaths of victory. The dark of night turning to the dawn of a new morning.
But we are talking in the most magnificent turn-arounds, in which only Jesus can pull off.
The ghastly sight of the Man on the Cross becomes our forgiveness; now the sight of the Risen Lord gives new birth to faith.
This encounter between Jesus and St. Thomas, with the apostle touching the wounds of Christ, and then falling prostrate and uttering the five word prayer: My Lord and My God!–it is most fitting for the feast of Divine Mercy.
It so happened that a polish mystic saw the Lord—in another Resurrected Jesus encounter of modern type—and it happened so that the Lord could encourage the new
It is hard to imagine how St. Thomas must have felt on that eighth day of Resurrection when the other apostles had told him they had seen Jesus, risen and alive. His reply in today’s Gospel of John passage (Divine Mercy Sunday Gospel) sheds some light on the anger and hurt filling his heart, as he stubbornly protests believing in Jesus’ resurrection until he could see and touch the wounds from the crucifixion.
The week he spent wrestling with his own heart, and the testimonies of the other apostles, perhaps wore down his stubbornness enough so that he was present the following Sunday when Jesus appeared again. He would not have remained with the apostles if he absolutely refused to believe. Somewhere in his heart, he was still hopeful. Yet his puzzlement of Jesus going back into harm’s way to Jerusalem is voiced in an earlier Lenten gospel we covered: In the plans of Jesus to go visit Lazarus’ family in Bethany (2 miles from Jerusalem), Thomas protests at first of these plans of the Master. But Jesus insists it is to be. Do remember Thomas’ words of acceptance in that moment? He says, “Then let us all go and die with Him.” Perhaps it was at that moment that Thomas felt overwrought in a Savior’s plans to die for us all poor sinners. It was too much to ask Jesus to do; it wasn’t fair. Our own sins of the world are too many. Plus, can’t the traveling ministry just keep going on with The Lord? Why must it so early on come to its end?
After Jesus was crucified, Thomas must have been mortified to have realized how it had all truly come to pass, of how God came to be a sacrifice for us. In the Last Supper, too, Jesus had instituted a new Passover rite in His memory—showing how the Savior saw all that would transpire over the rest of that Thursday up to the Cross. Jesus had said at least three official times to them that He would die, but it didn’t register enough with them. On Good Friday, it hit like a thud for Thomas the apostle. And he just disappeared from the apostle’s company, for perhaps a whole week.
I wonder if one of the other apostles had gone and found Thomas, in wherever he was hiding out in his grief and bewilderment. I wonder if that apostle had tried to rekindle the memory of Thomas: Don’t you remember that when the Master predicted His own looming death that He also predicted His rising?! Come and see.
Isn’t that the same for all of us, especially when we are faced with the crosses of life? Can we withdraw, or just not want to deal squarely with what is so uncomfortable or trying? Yes, surely.
Suffering can be downplayed or dismissed, but there is nothing simple, easy, or glamorous about it, no matter what it is. There is true ugliness in our world and we all have come face to face with it, in one way or another, but even in our moments of deepest agony or turmoil, there is something in us that still clings to hope.
It is in this place that St. Thomas encounters the Risen Lord. Jesus could have appeared to St. Thomas and berated him for his unbelief, possibly sending him away from the apostles for his hardness of heart. But, rather than exercise Divine Justice—which is Jesus’ right as God—Jesus abundantly pours Divine Mercy upon him. Jesus instructs Thomas to touch the wounds of the crucifixion, to touch the nail marks and place his hand in Jesus’ side. Beyond proving to Thomas that he did indeed rise from the dead, Jesus is meeting Thomas in his suffering of disbelief, confusion and pain, and showing Thomas that he has taken that suffering upon Himself. Jesus knows his pain intimately and has not dismissed it or punished Thomas for it. In making it his own, Jesus recreates Thomas’ heart, filling him with new life.
We can say that there is more that is an unwritten part of the Thomas hide-out story. His disappearance is not all bad in action; and if we would have seen that time for him as one of his re-gathering of himself. He maybe saw himself as to be a burden to the others, like a weight of doubt they did not need. He may have thought it a favor to do.
But Thomas does not to get to the Risen part of the Jesus’ story.
We all do. It’s in all the literature of hope and in art—the coming on up for the rising. The turning of ashes to wreaths of victory. The dark of night turning to the dawn of a new morning.
But we are talking in the most magnificent turn-arounds, in which only Jesus can pull off.
The ghastly sight of the Man on the Cross becomes our forgiveness; now the sight of the Risen Lord gives new birth to faith.
This encounter between Jesus and St. Thomas, with the apostle touching the wounds of Christ, and then falling prostrate and uttering the five word prayer: My Lord and My God!–it is most fitting for the feast of Divine Mercy.
It so happened that a polish mystic saw the Lord—in another Resurrected Jesus encounter of modern type—and it happened so that the Lord could encourage the new emphasis on the Eight Day of the Easter Octave to be about His Divine Mercy. St. Maria Faustina, the mystic, was canonized in 2000. It led to have Pope John Paul II, another Polish figure, to have to pass on the Polish religious sister’s revelations and word and image from Jesus to spread the devotion that is held today. The famous painting of Jesus with white and red rays coming forth from him, with the inscription, “Jesus, I trust in you,” was painted from a vision St. Faustina received. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy and the feast itself were both requests from Jesus to St. Faustina, as she records in a Diary she kept. The parish bulletin has the devotion printed in it, if you want to participate, but don’t have the Chaplet pamphlet on you. One uses the beads of a rosary to count and pray the Chaplet.
Easter is the highest-ranking feast of the year, the holiest feast. It is so holy that it takes us eight days to fully celebrate the glory of this one day. It copies what the Jews had done for eight days in their Passover Rite; observant Jews just completed theirs for 2023 on this past Thursday night.
Yet Jesus is our New Passover for Catholics, and we have Easter. Its eighth day is a Sunday and a Divine Mercy them.
Jesus desired to make abundantly clear that He died out of love for us, and He will stop at nothing to shower that love upon us. He says to St. Faustina: “If souls would put themselves completely in My care, I Myself would undertake the task of sanctifying them, and I would lavish even greater graces on them. There are souls who thwart My efforts, but I have not given up on them; as often as they turn to Me, I hurry to their aid, shielding them with My mercy, and I give them the first place in My compassionate Heart.” Diary, 1682
The Gospel interaction between Jesus and St. Thomas at the Upper Room on Day 8 is brought to life with these Diary words. Jesus showers Thomas with mercy and even greater graces than had he when he first believed. This is hard to comprehend! How is it that God, who is perfect, can be just and super=abundantly merciful?
To answer that question theologically would take some time. However, in our moments of guilt and shame, when mercy is extended to us through Jesus’ victory over death, we are not asking a theological question. In those moments, our hearts are asking how it is possible not to burst out of love of such a gift. How can it be that God does not erase the past, but recreates it in such a way that blesses us, even though we were the sinners? An example will help illustrate this sentiment.
Think of something in your past that you deeply regret—something that, if time machines existed, you would go back and change. While thinking about this moment, imagine that Jesus meets you in your moment of greatest shame or guilt. Do not imagine that he says to you, “no big deal, I forgive you,” or “I’ll just overlook that.” No, instead imagine that he says, “I know the pain this has caused you because I have made that pain my own. See and touch the nail marks in my hands and place your hand in my side. I know how much this hurts you.” Knowing our pain intimately, he says, “I want to give you my life so that these wounds do not keep you from me. These wounds have drawn me close to you and I seek to recreate your heart in love so that you can never be separated from me again.” That example there is Jesus’ unfathomable Divine Mercy.
Perhaps you pulled back from Jesus’ offer like St. Thomas did when the apostles told him Jesus had risen. Perhaps it is too much to think that Jesus could or would do something like that. It is! That is why his death and resurrection are unthinkable. That God would die for a sinner is unthinkable. However, in His mercy, He promised to do this from the very first sin. In the Garden of Eden, he encountered Adam and Eve in their guilt and said to them:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; they will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.” Genesis 3:15
Charming. As strange as this verse sounds, it is in God’s punishment— His act of justice—of Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit that he promises to save them. The Fathers of the Church have interpreted this verse as the protoevangelium or “the first gospel.” This is the first promise in Scripture of a savior. God is saying here that the offspring of humankind, of which God became, will strike the devil and defeat him.
God’s plan from the beginning was for all of us to be in communion with Him (or Them, the Holy Trinity). Our sin did not thwart the plan. Rather, it allowed for God’s mercy and love to be known in greater depths than ever imaginable. This is not to say that God uses our sin to show His love, or that God erases our past as if the suffering did not matter. This is sometimes called Justification. We get justified by God via Jesus. It becomes that we live free, and just-as-if-I’d-never sinned. We are justified by a merciful God. It cost God to act in this way for us. The suffering mattered, and He felt it on the Cross, and we can unite our suffering to His to find the strength to bear it. Suffering can only be redemptive because Jesus overcame it.
God does not just functionally use us. If He wanted to use us, then he never would have given us free will and sin would not exist. We would operate more like robots or computers rather than human beings. God cannot be a loving, merciful God if He uses His creatures— because true love is given and received in freedom. Being forced to love someone is not love, it is servitude. Therefore, God does not use our sins because he loves us. Rather than using it, he chooses to meet us in the suffering caused by our sin and bear the suffering with us. Isn’t that the mark of true love, when someone sits with you in your darkest moments rather than leaving you for someone more fun? And going even further, rather than allowing our sin to destroy us, God recreates us in His new and resurrected life. This is mercy—to give beyond what is deserved. We only deserve God’s justice, and He cannot help but shower us with mercy.
Let me quote here something on God’s mercy as written by Pope John Paul II. It is of Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo.”
Dives in Misericordia, 8
“Here is the Son of God, who in his resurrection experienced in a radical way mercy shown to himself; that is to say the love of the Father which is more powerful than death. And it is also the same Christ, the Son of God, who at the end of his messianic mission—and, in a certain sense, even beyond the end—reveals himself as the inexhaustible source of mercy, of the same love that, in a subsequent perspective of the history of salvation in the Church, is to be everlastingly confirmed as more powerful than sin. The paschal Christ is the definitive incarnation of mercy, its living sign in salvation history and in eschatology. In the same spirit, the liturgy of Eastertide places on our lips the words of the Psalm: “
In conclusion, it is when we have opened our wounded hearts to the merciful heart of Jesus and received the unfathomable gift of His resurrected life, that we can exclaim (too) with St. Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”
on the Eight Day of the Easter Octave to be about His Divine Mercy. St. Maria Faustina, the mystic, was canonized in 2000. It led to have Pope John Paul II, another Polish figure, to have to pass on the Polish religious sister’s revelations and word and image from Jesus to spread the devotion that is held today. The famous painting of Jesus with white and red rays coming forth from him, with the inscription, “Jesus, I trust in you,” was painted from a vision St. Faustina received. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy and the feast itself were both requests from Jesus to St. Faustina, as she records in a Diary she kept. The parish bulletin has the devotion printed in it, if you want to participate, but don’t have the Chaplet pamphlet on you. One uses the beads of a rosary to count and pray the Chaplet.
Easter is the highest-ranking feast of the year, the holiest feast. It is so holy that it takes us eight days to fully celebrate the glory of this one day. It copies what the Jews had done for eight days in their Passover Rite; observant Jews just completed theirs for 2023 on this past Thursday night.
Yet Jesus is our New Passover for Catholics, and we have Easter. Its eighth day is a Sunday and a Divine Mercy them.
Jesus desired to make abundantly clear that He died out of love for us, and He will stop at nothing to shower that love upon us. He says to St. Faustina: “If souls would put themselves completely in My care, I Myself would undertake the task of sanctifying them, and I would lavish even greater graces on them. There are souls who thwart My efforts, but I have not given up on them; as often as they turn to Me, I hurry to their aid, shielding them with My mercy, and I give them the first place in My compassionate Heart.” Diary, 1682
The Gospel interaction between Jesus and St. Thomas at the Upper Room on Day 8 is brought to life with these Diary words. Jesus showers Thomas with mercy and even greater graces than had he when he first believed. This is hard to comprehend! How is it that God, who is perfect, can be just and super=abundantly merciful?
To answer that question theologically would take some time. However, in our moments of guilt and shame, when mercy is extended to us through Jesus’ victory over death, we are not asking a theological question. In those moments, our hearts are asking how it is possible not to burst out of love of such a gift. How can it be that God does not erase the past, but recreates it in such a way that blesses us, even though we were the sinners? An example will help illustrate this sentiment.
Think of something in your past that you deeply regret—something that, if time machines existed, you would go back and change. While thinking about this moment, imagine that Jesus meets you in your moment of greatest shame or guilt. Do not imagine that he says to you, “no big deal, I forgive you,” or “I’ll just overlook that.” No, instead imagine that he says, “I know the pain this has caused you because I have made that pain my own. See and touch the nail marks in my hands and place your hand in my side. I know how much this hurts you.” Knowing our pain intimately, he says, “I want to give you my life so that these wounds do not keep you from me. These wounds have drawn me close to you and I seek to recreate your heart in love so that you can never be separated from me again.” That example there is Jesus’ unfathomable Divine Mercy.
Perhaps you pulled back from Jesus’ offer like St. Thomas did when the apostles told him Jesus had risen. Perhaps it is too much to think that Jesus could or would do something like that. It is! That is why his death and resurrection are unthinkable. That God would die for a sinner is unthinkable. However, in His mercy, He promised to do this from the very first sin. In the Garden of Eden, he encountered Adam and Eve in their guilt and said to them:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; they will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.” Genesis 3:15
Charming. As strange as this verse sounds, it is in God’s punishment— His act of justice—of Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit that he promises to save them. The Fathers of the Church have interpreted this verse as the protoevangelium or “the first gospel.” This is the first promise in Scripture of a savior. God is saying here that the offspring of humankind, of which God became, will strike the devil and defeat him.
God’s plan from the beginning was for all of us to be in communion with Him (or Them, the Holy Trinity). Our sin did not thwart the plan. Rather, it allowed for God’s mercy and love to be known in greater depths than ever imaginable. This is not to say that God uses our sin to show His love, or that God erases our past as if the suffering did not matter. This is sometimes called Justification. We get justified by God via Jesus. It becomes that we live free, and just-as-if-I’d-never sinned. We are justified by a merciful God. It cost God to act in this way for us. The suffering mattered, and He felt it on the Cross, and we can unite our suffering to His to find the strength to bear it. Suffering can only be redemptive because Jesus overcame it.
God does not just functionally use us. If He wanted to use us, then he never would have given us free will and sin would not exist. We would operate more like robots or computers rather than human beings. God cannot be a loving, merciful God if He uses His creatures— because true love is given and received in freedom. Being forced to love someone is not love, it is servitude. Therefore, God does not use our sins because he loves us. Rather than using it, he chooses to meet us in the suffering caused by our sin and bear the suffering with us. Isn’t that the mark of true love, when someone sits with you in your darkest moments rather than leaving you for someone more fun? And going even further, rather than allowing our sin to destroy us, God recreates us in His new and resurrected life. This is mercy—to give beyond what is deserved. We only deserve God’s justice, and He cannot help but shower us with mercy.
Let me quote here something on God’s mercy as written by Pope John Paul II. It is of Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo.”
Dives in Misericordia, 8
“Here is the Son of God, who in his resurrection experienced in a radical way mercy shown to himself; that is to say the love of the Father which is more powerful than death. And it is also the same Christ, the Son of God, who at the end of his messianic mission—and, in a certain sense, even beyond the end—reveals himself as the inexhaustible source of mercy, of the same love that, in a subsequent perspective of the history of salvation in the Church, is to be everlastingly confirmed as more powerful than sin. The paschal Christ is the definitive incarnation of mercy, its living sign in salvation history and in eschatology. In the same spirit, the liturgy of Eastertide places on our lips the words of the Psalm: “
In conclusion, it is when we have opened our wounded hearts to the merciful heart of Jesus and received the unfathomable gift of His resurrected life, that we can exclaim (too) with St. Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”