Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday)

Peace be with you.  This is always a nice way to begin a conversation or relationship.  Things get off to a good start.  We work with what is positive and agreeable.  Have a good day.  Best wishes.  Move on.

We know how fragile, tenuous and superficial these facile agreements and exchanges can be.  They don’t ask much of us.  Now, go your way and mind your own business. That’s all the connection that’s needed.

It is easier to stick to safe territory even if it means you have confined your living space behind locked doors.  The locked doors may be “principled intolerance” or the comforting sense that everybody I know confirms and conforms to the beliefs I already hold.  Who would dare suggest that fear has been the designer and architect of the confines in which I move? Peace can become a form of mutual deterrence, of non-involvement.  Do not disturb. Let me alone.  The individualism of our age often breeds painful experiences of loneliness and alienation.  Pain which sometimes uses addiction and violence to cry out and be heard.  Wounds that can be felt and heard.

Christ entered the closed space that was constructed to provide safety. Three times he said PEACE BE WITH YOU.  Shalom. Was he just saying, good morning.   Relax?  Don’t worry, everything is o.k.?  You deserted and dumped me, but no problem. Or was he questioning the walls we use in self-defense?

What do Christ’s words mean for us as he stands in our midst and proclaims these words?  What do we mean when we repeat these words in our exchange of peace during the eucharist?  What if instead of fear, peace becomes the architect and designer of our lives?  What difference would that make? Jesus was able to pass through locked doors. Early on in his pontificate, Pope Francis reminded us that peace is a work and a struggle, not a static holding pattern.  Peace or Shalom means a harmony within one self, a harmony with others, with God, and with the created world.  All at once. It is inherently other-directed and interactive.  Your peace is my peace. It is a gift and a commitment.  It moves on by moving OUT.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you. Though the doors were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst.  He stands in our midst. Thank God He is not bound by the limits our fear creates.

The peace he offers, creates, breathes upon those willing to inhale, is a communion and harmony springing alive from the Father.  It is his spirit which gives life and reality to the words we speak.  Epiclesis. We invoke the breath of the Spirit over our offerings. Peace be with you.   The words are a sacrament and sign of our belief.  Be not unbelieving, but believe.  Peace is belief discovering itself in communion and harmony with God and the effort to bring it to life.

This is Divine Mercy Sunday when we celebrate the closeness and embrace of God.  Not just for humanity “in general”, but for that humanity we are, that we express and embody in our communities and communion.  Mercy is not content with keeping its distance.  Jesus comes close and shows his wounds to his disciples, not as a badge of courage or a cause for their shame.  He revealed the presence of God in the depths of humanity, in those dark places where we are afraid we are alone.  In those places, those wounds, we can know the communion we have with him.  And then we can go out and share the peace which is a gift of God and a revelation of ourselves.  Have Mercy on us and in us and through us.