Dear parishioners,

Last week we celebrated the biggest event of our Christian year, Easter; from the Last Supper, and Jesus dying on the Cross, to His Resurrection. At Easter we celebrate the beginning of a new era in our Christian faith. Jesus has defeated death. The Shepherd has rescued his sheep. He came down from heavens to take us with Him to the Father, to open up for us the path to heaven. What a great Saviour we have! That Shepherd comes to give us His peace. 

After the Resurrection Jesus seeks out his followers and to each one of them, he transmits this same Peace. After his death, they are confused and afraid, and mourning his loss, but He comes to meet them where they are. This Sunday we hear of how come to meet the disciples where they are afraid and locked in a room, hiding from the authorities. And then how Thomas was missing when he came, and so doubts the disciples’ experience of the Risen Lord, and so a week later Jesus returns to reach out personally to him. 

Jesus knows his disciples very well and he knows us very well! He comes to where we are, to our room, like the Gospel. He looks for us offering us His peace, the peace He knows we need. How many situations we live in our daily life that make us live in fear, anguish, despair, but he knows that and He comes to our help bringing us that peace that nothing and no one can take from us. The certainty of His Resurrection is with us, even our own doubts are not enough to separate us from Him. In the Gospel Jesus came to Thomas, giving him an answer to his doubts, inviting Thomas to touch his wounds in exactly the way that he had stated would be the only condition for him to believe in Jesus. Each one of the disciples was different. Each one of them needed to meet Jesus again in a personal way. Jesus gave to each one a personal experience of His New Life: Mary Magdalen, Peter, John, Emmaus disciples, etc. Each one different and at the same time the same experience: Jesus is Risen and is with and among them. We too are different, and Jesus wants to reach out to us in a unique way, to give us the trust and the hope that we need to live our life in Him. The way that Jesus reached out personally to each one of the disciples was in spite of them having let him down or abandoned him in his hour of need, it is full of his merciful love that forgives their faults and limitations. Today is Divine Mercy Sunday and is a reminder that Jesus’ generous, overflowing merciful love is for everyone, for us too. 

We can pray the prayer of today’s Psalm: Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his love has no end. His love has no limits and empowers us to love like him in those difficult situations that challenge our love, and to be witnesses of His mercy among our family and friends.

Have a great week, Anabel Gonzalez, FMVD