Happy Easter! Today is the last day of our Easter Octave - since Easter is so important we celebrate it with solemnity for 8 days, and then we keep celebrating just with a little less solemnity for 42 more days. Easter Season is 50 days to show it is more important than Lent, I hope everyone is enjoying their celebrations.
During Easter Season, one of the options that priests have is the Sprinkling Rite. Rather than doing the Penitential Rite at the beginning, I could do the sprinkling, but you’ll recall that I didn’t sprinkle today. How many of you just breathed a sigh of relief realizing it wasn’t happening today?
It is my sense - and I could be wrong about this - my sense is that many people don’t enjoy the Sprinkling Rite. The Church asks us to do it on Easter Sunday when we renew our Baptismal Promises, and after that it’s optional, so I am exercising the option not to do it here.
The point of the Sprinkling Rite is to remind us of our Baptism, it’s to remind us of our status as adopted sons and daughters of God. When that water was poured over us at our baptism, we were sealed with an indelible mark showing for eternity that we are God’s beloved children.
There are other ways to remind ourselves of that too, we have these Holy Water fonts that we dip our hands into, that’s a habit all year long, and part of me thinks that is sufficient. But the other part of me thinks that today would have been a really great day to do the sprinkling rite, because today we celebrate Divine Mercy, and this image that Jesus gave us clearly shows water and blood being poured out on us, on the whole world, sprinkled on us, if you will.
If you don’t recall that image you can look in your bulletin, or look to the back to our 8 foot tall version. Jesus gave this vision of Himself to Sr. Faustina and asked her to paint it for us so that we could reflect on His mercy. Jesus has His right hand raised in blessing, and His left hand is showing His heart, where two rays stream forth, the pale ray standing for “Water which makes souls righteous,” and the red ray standing for “Blood which is the life of souls.” (Diary, 299)
We heard in our second reading from St. John, “This is the one who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by water alone, but by water and blood.” Jesus comes to us still today. Water is clearly baptism, and the blood points us to the Eucharist, this is how Jesus comes to us in the Sacraments.
For today’s celebration of Divine Mercy, Jesus asks us to receive His blood in the Eucharist, but today’s celebration is more than that, Divine Mercy puts a huge emphasis on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or Confession. The Church asks us to go to Confession at least once a year, normally in Lent, so we can receive the Eucharist, Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, on Easter Sunday. This used to be known as our “Easter Duty.”
In this same 2nd Reading we heard this, “In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” - in the same way I think many people don’t like sprinkling, I think many people don’t like Confession, they think Reconciliation is burdensome, so they avoid it. They think, “oh, that’s too much, I take my sins straight to God. I know He forgives me, I don’t need to talk to a priest.”
But that is not the way Jesus set this all up. Listen again to our Gospel, “Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."” How can sins be retained unless they are told to someone else?
St. Padre Pio, one of the most famous confessors ever, a spiritual gift he had was the ability to “read souls” and sometimes he would not forgive sins if he knew they weren’t sorry or didn’t intend to stop sinning, he’d “retain” their sins. Padre Pio would hear confessions for 14 hours/day or more, people came from all over, and I’d guess it was because people “knew that he knew,” there was no attempt to hide anything, they could be like they were in front of God, free, open, honest - and really expect to be forgiven, really trusting God’s mercy.
God designed this Sacrament, giving the priests this responsibility of hearing confessions and forgiving sins in His name. So even though I can’t read souls, my encouragement is to be free, open and honest, not trying to hide anything, rather getting everything cleared out to get your relationship with God back on track.
God the Father sent His only begotten Son to reconcile us to Himself through His blood, poured out for the forgiveness of our sins. I often say of the Eucharist that by Jesus’ death and resurrection it allows Him to be present in all of the tabernacles in the world, but I recently realized that by His death & resurrection, it allows Him to be present in all of the priests in the world too, to give this Sacramental Reconciliation with the Father.
This is not burdensome, it is a huge benefit. Some people will say, “well Father I don’t really sin,” but Proverbs 24:16 says the just man falls 7 times every day, and although often we think of Confession is only necessary for mortal sins (1 John 5:17), but I find it helpful for venial sins too, personally I’m going to confession on average every week or two - it is so freeing to hear the words of absolution, so comforting to be back fully in God’s grace, to know for certain God heard me through the Priest.
This is what Jesus came for, to free us from our sins. There are lots of opportunities, but Divine Mercy Sunday is perhaps the best, Jesus told Sr. Faustina, “On that day… the Soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment…” (Diary, 699) The special grace of today is that our punishment is removed too.
Another theme of today’s Gospel was fear and peace. Can you imagine how afraid those guys in the upper room were after abandoning Jesus during the Passion? But Jesus came to give peace to all of us who abandon Him through sin, saying to Sr. Faustina, “Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet… My mercy is so great… Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy.” (Diary, 699) So don’t let fear stop you either, be free, open and honest like you are sitting with God Himself.
That takes a lot of trust doesn’t it? But Jesus wants to give you peace like those first Apostles, and that’s where the tagline at the bottom of the image of Divine Mercy, “Jesus, I trust in you” comes into play. God wants to pour out His loving mercy on us. Will you accept it?