Deacon Matt's Reflection

Reflection for Divine Mercy Sunday: April 7, 2024

Acts 4:32-35: In this brief   passage, we get a glimpse of the world that we’d all like to see; a community of people who are all living out their Christian faith with consistency and integrity. Because of the peoples’ total conformity to the Christian principles of detachment from temporal possessions and promotion of the common good, there is a beautiful “unity” and “sharing in common” that will characterize the coming Kingdom of God.

When a whole community are living the faith, there will come an amazing level of trust and confidence between persons that will transcend traditional “boundaries” regarding individual ownership. With uniform obedience to God will come a confidence that God will take care of everyone’s needs, at the discretion of the loving faith community. This passage is a foretaste of Heaven!

Psalm 118: “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love is everlasting.” After our initial hopeful reflection, we’re invited to join in singing a psalm of rejoicing, praise and thanksgiving. The strong urge in a faithful soul is to eagerly accept the invitation. After all, our God is exceptionally loving, merciful and unwaveringly faithful to His promise to love and care for us, eternally!

Our God is compassionate and responsive to our needs. We can be confident that our God can meet all of our needs; He can do much more than meet our needs. Our God can accomplish things way beyond what we can even imagine! Let’s take time to reflect that our God has sacrificed His own Son for our Salvation. Our God has made the traumatic Passion and death of the Lord rejuvenate and blossom into Jesus’ Resurrection; such that we can now enjoy eternal life. That’s something to celebrate!

1 John 5:1-6:  Belief in Jesus creates the Christian unity we’re witnessing in today’s first reading. Notice that “believers” in Jesus are begotten by God, and that these same believers love others who are begotten by God. This means that believers (begotten by God), love Jesus and… they love other believers, who are also begotten by God! Because of this universal love and trust, members of the Christian community will hold nothing back in the zeal of love they have for Jesus and other believers! This indiscriminate love creates the utopian community that we’ve observed today in the reading from “Acts.” With the faith described, this level of union and sharing go from almost unimaginable to very eminently possible! Let’s believe!

John 20:19-31: Why wasn’t Thomas with the other disciples when Jesus appeared to the Apostles, the first time? I believe that Thomas was being offered a compliment and a special invitation. Jesus knew and had confidence that Thomas could choose to believe without seeing. This is a compliment and a vote of confidence in Thomas. However, Thomas disappoints Jesus. He (Thomas) declares that he must see, in order to believe.

We can’t judge Thomas. We all have moments like this, in our lives; when we waver between faith and unbelief. Now, during this Easter season, we’re being given the same invitation that was offered to Thomas. Will we choose to believe, without seeing, or will we insist upon a “proving experience?” It’s obvious that Jesus would like us to be among the blessed… “those who have not seen and have believed.”

Let’s believe!         
Deacon Matt