Jesus' Easter Mercy

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - April 1, 2005

Catholics can easily recall when Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. He did it during the first Mass, which began during the Last Supper with the words of consecration and finished the following afternoon when Jesus literally gave his body and shed his blood for us on the Cross.

But far fewer Catholics know when Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which may be one of the reasons many today take it for granted. He did it on the day he rose from the dead! The timing of its inception shows just how crucial Jesus considered it in his salvific mission.

By doing it on Easter Sunday evening, he also manifested what the sacrament of reconciliation is meant to bring about. Just like in the parable of the prodigal son, whenever we return to the Father's house through this sacrament, the Father rejoices because his "son who was dead has come to life again" (Lk 15:24). Jesus wanted explicitly to link our resurrection through this Sacrament to his resurrection from the dead.

So on the day he rose from the dead, he walked through the closed doors of the room where ten of his apostles were huddled together. He first words to them were "peace be with you." He had come from heaven to establish the definitive peace treaty between God and man through the forgiveness of our sins and he was about to commission them to continue this very mission.

"Just as the Father sent me," he said, "so I send you!" But since "no one can forgive sins but God alone" (Mk 2:7), Jesus had to give them God's power to fulfill this mission. So he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Then he said words that point clearly to the structure of the sacrament of confession as we know it: "Those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; those whose sins you retain, they are retained." Jesus didn't give them the ability to read minds or hearts; therefore the only way that they would know which sins to forgive or retain is if individual sinners told them their sins.

Just as Jesus three days before had made them his instruments in order to give us his body and blood through the sacrament of the Eucharist, so he was making them his instruments, his ambassadors, through whom he would forgive our sin.

These two sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist are intrinsically related. Just like a loving mother both cleans and feeds a child, so God through these sacraments both wipes us clean of our sins and fills us with supernatural nourishment.

During this Year of the Eucharist, Pope John Paul II has called all of us in the Church to renewal in two areas: a revival in all parishes of the celebration of Sunday Mass and an increase in Eucharistic adoration. He wants us to receive Christ more worthily and worship our Eucharistic Lord with greater love and gratitude.

The whole Church would benefit from a similar two-fold renewal with respect to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. There needs to a revival both in terms of our receiving Christ's forgiveness through the sacrament and an increase in worship our Merciful Lord.

This Sunday's Feast of Divine Mercy is an opportunity for us to focus on each of these two priorities.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II instituted this feast on the Second Sunday of Easter so that the Church might rejoice over Christ's gift of mercy within the Easter Octave. The Pope announced this new feast during the canonization of St. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun to whom the Lord appeared in the 1930s asking her to spread throughout the world devotion to his merciful love.

Private revelations like the one to St. Faustina never disclose to us anything truly new; their purpose is to remind us of what God has revealed in Scripture and Tradition and apply those truths to particular circumstances we face.

In his appearances to Faustina, Jesus wanted to remind all of us of what he said throughout the Gospel: that we need his mercy, that we have to trust in, ask for, and receive that mercy, and that we need to share that mercy with others. And through her he called us to live five new devotions by which we could more deeply assimilate all of these realities.

He asked that a feast of his Divine Mercy be established on the Second Sunday of Easter, prepared for by a novena beginning Good Friday. He showed her an image of Divine Mercy, with blood and water flowing from his pierced side, and asked her to spread its veneration. He called on all of us to unite ourselves in prayer to him on the Cross at 3 pm each day. And he taught us to pray the beautiful Chaplet of Divine Mercy, which explicitly links our prayers for God's mercy to Jesus in the Eucharist.

As we continue to celebrate Easter, we turn with trust to Jesus and ask him to help us experience the true joy of his resurrection through each of these devotions and especially through the resurrection from death to life he wants to give us in a confessional nearby.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.