Divine Mercy Sunday 2025 Homily: Fr Vigoa — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:03Today the universal church throughout
2. 0:04the world sings the responsorial psalm.
3. 0:08Give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
4. 0:10His mercy endures
5. 0:13forever. We sing that responsorial song
6. 0:16with new
7. 0:18joy. We stand once again before the most
8. 0:21astonishing reality of our
9. 0:24faith, the endless mercy of God. That's
10. 0:27what we're being asked to contemplate
11. 0:29this
12. 0:31weekend. On this second Sunday of
13. 0:33Easter, now forever called Divine Mercy
14. 0:37Sunday. We're invited to plunge into the
15. 0:40ocean of mercy that flowed from the
16. 0:42heart of
17. 0:44Jesus, pierced for our sins, open for
18. 0:48our hope.
19. 0:50It's interesting that Fstaina begged the
20. 0:52Holy Father, the Holy Father of her
21. 0:55time, to establish a feast day of divine
22. 0:59mercy. The Pope said to her, "We already
23. 1:02have
24. 1:03one." Fina went back to Jesus confused
25. 1:06and said, "Lord, the Pope says we
26. 1:09already have a feast of divine mercy."
27. 1:12And Jesus answered her, "Who knows about
28. 1:15it?" Nobody knew.
29. 1:18Nobody really understood the incredible
30. 1:20outpouring of mercy he wanted the world
31. 1:23to
32. 1:25understand. So it was in the year 2000 a
33. 1:29Polish pope St. John Paul II standing in
34. 1:34the radiant light of Easter canonized a
35. 1:37humble nun, a Polish nun, Sister Fainina
36. 1:41Kavska, and proclaimed this Sunday, the
37. 1:43second Sunday of Easter, as Divine Mercy
38. 1:46Sunday for all the church for all
39. 1:50time. And at the heart of her message
40. 1:53and of today's feast is something we
41. 1:55dare never to forget.
42. 1:59Mercy is not something God
43. 2:02has. Mercy is who God
44. 2:06is. If we are honest, we know how
45. 2:09shallow our human mercy often
46. 2:12is. We've we can forgive once, twice,
47. 2:17maybe even three times, but soon our
48. 2:20patient runs out. Many times we say,
49. 2:23"Well, enough is enough. I've already
50. 2:25forgiven enough
51. 2:27times. But God's mercy knows no
52. 2:31limits. He does not tire of
53. 2:34forgiving. He does not withdraw his love
54. 2:37after too many
55. 2:39failures. He does not close his heart
56. 2:41when we fall for the thousandth
57. 2:45time. Today's gospel shows us this
58. 2:48vividly.
59. 2:50The risen Christ walks through those
60. 2:52locked doors to find his fearful,
61. 2:55wounded
62. 2:56disciples. And what are the first words
63. 2:59out of his mouth? Peace be with
64. 3:04you. Not words of
65. 3:07anger, not why are you hiding in fear,
66. 3:11not why did you abandon me? No, he says
67. 3:15peace be with you.
68. 3:18And then astonishly astonishingly he
69. 3:20breathes on them and gives them a
70. 3:22mission. Whose sins you forgive are
71. 3:25forgiven
72. 3:26them. He gives them weak broken men the
73. 3:32ministry of divine mercy
74. 3:35itself. In the heart of Jesus, mercy
75. 3:38triumphs over
76. 3:39justice. Love triumphs over
77. 3:43betrayal. Peace triumphs over fear.
78. 3:48And we see this all throughout
79. 3:50scripture. We see how God's mercy not
80. 3:53just is spoken but acted
81. 3:57out. You may remember he rescued Lot and
82. 3:59his family from the burning cities even
83. 4:03as they hesitated and
84. 4:05lingered. Actually, it's the first
85. 4:07instance in that Genesis where we see
86. 4:10the word mercy.
87. 4:13He delivered Israel from slavery in
88. 4:16Egypt. He parted the Red Sea, fed them
89. 4:19in the desert, even them when they
90. 4:21grumbled and rebelled against
91. 4:23him. He forgave David after adultery and
92. 4:27murder. He restored Peter after his
93. 4:31denial. He forgave the woman caught in
94. 4:33adultery, not with condemnation, but
95. 4:35with these words, "Neither do I commit
96. 4:39condemn you. Go and sin no more.
97. 4:44In Jesus, we see that mercy is not
98. 4:48softness. It's not
99. 4:51indifference. Mercy looks honestly at
100. 4:53sin, but still
101. 4:56loves. Mercy calls us to change, but
102. 5:00never stop loving while we are
103. 5:04changing. And when Jesus appeared to
104. 5:06Sister Fina in the 1930s, he made his
105. 5:09will crystal clear.
106. 5:12He said, "Mankind will not have peace
107. 5:15until it turns to the font of my
108. 5:18mercy." Our world needs mercy
109. 5:23desperately. Look around us. Turn on the
110. 5:26news. Our world is
111. 5:29bleeding. World wars raging. Families
112. 5:32are torn apart. Many souls wander far
113. 5:35from the church, weighed down by shame
114. 5:37and hopelessness.
115. 5:40And behind many faces we see every day,
116. 5:42even smiling faces, there are hearts
117. 5:45that are carrying deep
118. 5:48wounds, buried regrets, and silent
119. 5:51despair. And the temptation is to think,
120. 5:55"I'm too
121. 5:56broken. I've fallen too much. I'm too
122. 6:00far
123. 6:01gone. Surely God must be tired of me by
124. 6:05now."
125. 6:07But Divine Mercy Sunday answers that
126. 6:09lie, the lie of the enemy with a
127. 6:11thundering
128. 6:13no. Jesus said to Sister Fina, "Let the
129. 6:17greatest sinners place their trust in
130. 6:19mercy, in my mercy. They have the right,
131. 6:23the first right to my
132. 6:26compassion." Because you see, in the
133. 6:27economy of divine mercy, it is the worst
134. 6:30sinners who are the first in line to
135. 6:33receive God's grace.
136. 6:37It is the most wounded who are nearest
137. 6:39to Jesus's
138. 6:41heart. It is the prodigals who are the
139. 6:44most sought
140. 6:45after. And so what is our response
141. 6:49today? How do we honor divine mercy? Not
142. 6:52just in theory, but in
143. 6:54life. Well, I want to give you two
144. 6:56simple steps to take with you
145. 6:59today. First is we need to
146. 7:02trust. Easier said than done.
147. 7:05But we need to practice
148. 7:07that those five words of fa of of of the
149. 7:12divine mercy chaplet Jesus I trust in
150. 7:15you. Those five words are not just some
151. 7:18pretty pious
152. 7:21slogan. They are the bridge which grace
153. 7:23floods into our lives because the more
154. 7:27we trust the more we receive.
155. 7:31And then the second thing is that we
156. 7:32must show
157. 7:35mercy. Mercy received must become mercy
158. 7:38given. Because if you desire mercy in
159. 7:41your life, you desire forgiveness in
160. 7:44your life, we must share that same mercy
161. 7:47and forgiveness with
162. 7:49others. If we have known the mercy of
163. 7:51Christ, then we must forgive even when
164. 7:54it costs us.
165. 7:56We must reach out to the lonely, to the
166. 7:59broken, to the forgotten, to the
167. 8:02marginalized. We must be the face of
168. 8:04mercy to a world that has forgotten how
169. 8:07to
170. 8:08hope. And let us remember, forgiveness
171. 8:10is not permissions to go back to
172. 8:12business as
173. 8:14usual. Forgiveness is the call to a new
174. 8:18life. When someone forgives us, we
175. 8:22change. When God forgives us, our hearts
176. 8:25must
177. 8:26soften. Our lives must
178. 8:29shine. And finally, if you want to see
179. 8:32the greatest act of mercy in history, I
180. 8:34want you to stand before the
181. 8:37cross. Meditate on the corpus of Jesus
182. 8:40on that wooden cross. There where
183. 8:42suffering and love
184. 8:45collide. You see the beating heart of a
185. 8:48God who would rather die than lose
186. 8:52you. St. Paul said it best. He said,
187. 8:55"But God, who is rich in
188. 8:57mercy, because of his great love with
189. 9:00which he loved us, even when we were
190. 9:02dead in our trespass
191. 9:04trespasses, made us alive together with
192. 9:09Christ." And Sister Fina in her diary
193. 9:12diary recorded Jesus's
194. 9:14invitation. Before I come as a just
195. 9:17judge, I first open wide the door of my
196. 9:21mercy.
197. 9:23That's powerful, my brothers and
198. 9:26sisters. Today, the door stands wide
199. 9:31open. We're called to run through it, to
200. 9:35trust in it, to live in it. Because
201. 9:39today on this great Divine Mercy Sunday,
202. 9:42the Lord places that responsorial psalm
203. 9:45in our hearts and it should echo in our
204. 9:48life. Give thanks to the Lord for he is
205. 9:51good. His mercy endures forever. Amen.