Inconceivable Mercy

Second Sunday of Easter/Divine Mercy Sunday 

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  In the movie, “The Princess Bride,” one of the antagonists, Vizzini, uses the word “inconceivable!” every time something happens that he can’t believe, which makes Iñigo Montoya, his erstwhile henchman, say, “You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.”
    The same could be said for the word mercy, which is a focus of today, since Pope St. John Paul II declared the Second Sunday of Easter (aka Sunday in the Octave of Easter or Low Sunday or Quasi Modo Sunday) to be Divine Mercy Sunday.  Since then, countless numbers of people have sought out the Lord’s mercy for past offenses, and have grown in their appreciation of God’s merciful love.  Indeed, our Lord promised St. Faustina: “The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion [on Divine Mercy Sunday] will obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment.”  This is part of the reason Fr. Daniel LaCroix from St. John Vianney parish will be helping me hear confessions at 1:30 today.
    But to understand such a generous gift, we have to understand what mercy truly is and what it is not.  Mercy is the transforming love of God accepted by a person who knows that he has sinned.  Mercy is not license, which is the abuse of God’s mercy that presumes we can keep on sinning.  Nor does mercy ignore faults or pretend they’re not real.  A person who doesn’t think he sins has no need for mercy, because mercy is the remedy for sin, and for a person who has no sin, no mercy is necessary.
    As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states in paragraph 1847, “To receive [God’s] mercy, we must admit our faults.”  It goes on to cite the first epistle of St. John, where the Beloved Disciples writes, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  In order for us to receive the great gift of God’s mercy, which is truly the Good News at its heart, we also have to be honest and recognize that we do not always live as God calls us to live.  
    Sin is death.  Sin is slavery.  Sin turns us in on ourselves.  God does not want that for any of us.  But He created us with free will that can be used well and choose Him and His way of life that leads to eternal happiness, or our free will can be used poorly and choose ourselves and Satan and eternal misery.  Because of original sin and personal sins, we worked against God and became His enemies.  But, “while we were still sinners Christ died for us,” as the Apostle says in his epistle to the Romans.  He continues, “Indeed, if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life.”  The Good News is that, while we chose death, and could not get out of its webs, again, quoting St. Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians, “For our sake [God] made [Christ] to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in [Christ].”  God took upon Himself in Christ the punishment that we deserved, not only so that we didn’t have to face that punishment, but so that we could enjoy what God initially created us for: eternal happiness with Him in heaven.  That is mercy.  That is inconceivable!
    And God’s mercy is meant to change us, to transform us.  When we recognize just how serious sin is, and just what God went through to free us from sin, it can change our hearts, our minds, and our actions.  God’s mercy desires to give us life in place of the death of sin; give us freedom in place of the slavery of sin; and turn us towards the Father, rather than the inward-facing nature of sin.  License rejoices that sin won’t be held against me, but looks for a new opportunity to return to sin, like a clean pig returning to the mud or a dog returning to its own vomit.  
    But, struggling to accept that change is not license.  Many people get caught in sins, especially sexual sins, and while they truly repent for what they have done, and confess their sins, and open themselves up to God’s mercy, they find themselves returning to the same sinful actions, thoughts, and habits again and again.  The difference between presuming on God’s mercy and struggling to cooperate with the transformation that mercy points to is our intention and our desire: do we wish to be free and holy, or do we wish to remain slaves to sin, so long as we don’t have to suffer the consequences?

    Today we rightly celebrate God’s mercy, which is infinitely more powerful than any sin we could ever commit.  Today as St. Thomas sees and touches Christ, he is transformed from a doubter to a believer, just as when we truly encounter the mercy of God we are transformed from a sinner to a saint.  But we have to make sure we know the meaning of the word mercy in order for it to benefit us.  We cannot mistake mercy for license to sin.  God’s mercy draws us out, even if it takes some time, from the filth of sin into the purity of holiness.  Allow God’s mercy to transform you, a mercy that came at the price of the death of the Son of God, a gift of mercy that truly was “inconceivable!”  [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]