Mercy and the Sacramental Life

Second Sunday of Easter Year A (Divine Mercy Sunday)

The beautiful prayer which closes each decade of the Chaplet of Mercy goes like this:
“Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.”

These words are a reminder that this devotional prayer, the Chaplet, is an offering of the Slain-Risen Lord to the Father—by His priestly people—asking the Father to be who He has shown Himself to be in Christ: Mercy. As such, the Chaplet is an extension of the liturgical offering of the same Slain-Risen Lord that is the holy sacrifice of the Mass. A reminder that today’s feast of the Divine Mercy, just like that of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and Corpus Christi, is essentially Eucharistic.

We often equate mercy with compassion, sympathy and forgiveness. But mercy is all that and so much more than a sentiment. It has a face - it is the face of the Lord who gave up His life on the cross and from His side, that side which has been opened in loving sacrifice, comes a spring of water and blood that brings to fruition the whole of history. From the ultimate self-sacrifice of Jesus springs forth blood and water, the Eucharist and baptism, as the source of a new community. The two rays emanating from the heart of the image of the Divine Mercy represents these two sacraments: the pale white light is baptism whereas the red ray represents the Eucharist. But the face of mercy is also that of the Risen Lord - it is His love, the God of Love, the God who is Love, encountering evil and death and overcoming it, healing it, redeeming it, and raising out of its ruins, surpassing goods that could never have been apart from these evils. This is best illustrated in the image of the Risen Lord who appears to His disciples behind closed doors, gifting them with the Holy Spirit, peace and forgiveness, instead of unleashing His wrath against their cowardice, failure and betrayal.

In the first reading, St Luke paints a somewhat ideal picture of the post-resurrection, post Pentecost Christian community - the Church of the early believers. It is a community to which anyone would wish to belong, a community where love prevails, where each member is attentive to the needs of others, where mercy rather than judgment and bickering is paramount. It is not surprising that their number was constantly on the increase. We may view this picture with envy as we contemplate our own broken and imperfect communities. We ask ourselves: what is the secret of their success? The passage shows us that the pillar of this community is the “breaking of bread,” the Eucharist, which bookends the passage. The source of their joy and spirit of generous sharing was the Eucharist. The highlight and focal point of their communal living was also the Eucharist. In other words, the Eucharist is indeed (borrowing the words of the Second Vatican Council) the “source and summit of Christian life,” of community life, and of ecclesial life.

In the second reading, St Peter tells us that in baptism, the Lord in “His great mercy has given us a new birth as his sons, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, so that we have a sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away, because it is being kept for you in the heavens.” Baptism is the gateway to life in the Spirit and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. It is the wellspring of life and holiness, the drowning of sin and resurrection into new life. But baptism does not only make us coheirs with Christ but also incorporates us into the Body of Christ, the Church, washes away original sin, places us within the flow of God's mercy. In baptism, the Father adopts us, the sacrificial love of the Son conforms us to His Body, and the Spirit transfigures us into witnesses of the Good News.

If baptism initiates the life of grace and mercy, the Eucharist sustains it. Yet, our Lord adds another element, in fact another sacrament, to this winning formula of salvation. It is forgiveness and reconciliation. That is the reason why when our Lord rose from the dead, the first thing He did when He returned to His apostles was to confer on them the power and faculty to forgive and absolve sins. He had already given the Church the gift of the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist from the cross, but now He needed to ensure that the life of grace which He poured forth from His sacrificial death would continue to be renewed, healed, revived and sustained through the sacrament of penance. The extent of His mercy did not stop with the cross, it continues in Him forgiving us and reconciling us, continuously healing the wounds inflicted by our sins on His Body, the Church. Baptismal grace without the Eucharist would be unsustainable but the Eucharist without confession would be fruitless and untenable.

That is why on this Sunday of the Divine Mercy, we need to remember that God’s mercy is not just nice platitudes, excusing sinners without genuine repentance, approving immorality for the sake of appearing merciful, acceptance of all forms of lifestyles and behaviours without discernment and righteous judgment. Such mercy is false. God’s mercy is real, infinite, and tender—but it is not automatic. It requires sincere repentance, a firm purpose to change, and a willingness to avoid the near occasion of sin.

Sadly, in today’s world, many Catholics—both priests and penitents—treat the Sacrament of Penance like a burden to be avoided or a routine instead of a spiritual battle. They confuse God’s mercy with leniency, forgetting that true mercy always leads to conversion. God’s mercy is not a license to continue in sin—it is the bridge that leads to holiness. But to cross that bridge, we must walk with repentance, not sit down with indifference. To love a soul is to help it reach heaven, not to comfort it on the road to hell. As St John Chrysostom rightly taught: “Many souls are lost for lack of correction.” Or as the apostle James tells us: “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, and this will cure you: the heartfelt prayer of a good man works very powerfully. My brothers, if one of you strays away from the truth, and another brings him back to it, he may be sure that anyone who can bring back a sinner from the wrong way that he has taken will be saving a soul from death and covering up a great number of sins.” (James 5:16,​19-20)

Today, the Church invites us to gaze on the holy image of the Divine Mercy. It is both the Crucified Lord who allowed His heart to be pierced and laid bare so that it can become the fount of mercy and the wellspring of sacramental graces. But the image also shows us the Risen Lord, the One who descended into hell and defeated our ancient enemies - sin, death and Satan - and now appears to us with His wounds as a victor’s trophy promising peace and reconciliation. This should be a description of the inner direction of our Christian life. We should look upon Him, keep the eyes of our heart turned upon Him, and thereby to grow more humble; to recognise our sins. As we look upon Him, let us take hope because He whom we have wounded is He who loves us. Jesus, I love you! Jesus, I trust in you!