2nd Sunday of Easter, Cycle B (2025)

In this Gospel reading, Thomas functions like a scientist, demanding concrete data, empirical evidence, if he is to accept as reality, what was told to him by the other Apostles: that Jesus is again alive. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  Thomas, for three years a first-hand witness to Jesus, needed proof if he was to believe.

I once read about an experiment. Imagine you were blindfolded, and a cardboard box was placed at your feet. Your task is to determine whether the box is either empty or has within it…say, an Easter rabbit. There are three distinct ways to find out. First, you could bend down and stick your hand into the box and feel around for the rabbit—that is, knowledge gained by use of senses. Second, you could pick up the box and judge by its weight, perhaps by slightly shaking the box, to feel movement—that is, knowledge gained by deduction or reasoning. Third, you could ask a person nearby to tell if there’s a rabbit in the box—that is, gaining knowledge by believing the testimony of another person (Mark Link, S.J., Illustrated Sunday Homilies).

We might pride ourselves on being well informed, yet the reality is that most of what we hear we take on faith, yet how often we repeat it as fact. In contrast, we tend to shrink with embarrassment when someone suggests that our faith is based on myths and superstition (Edward Dowling, S.J., Have You Heard The Good News).

But back to Thomas. He wanted not just to see Jesus, but to see and feel Jesus’s wounds. And Jesus, seeming to know Thomas’ demands, appeared to him and acquiesced to Thomas’ demand. “Peace be with you…Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

It’s curious that Thomas wanted to encounter the wounds of Jesus. And further, the wounds themselves are curiosity. Why does the Jesus, risen and glorified, still bears wounds? Here’s why: Just as Jesus was transformed by virtue of the Resurrection, so were his wounds.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who lived in the 12^th century, came to be known as the Mellifluous Doctor because of the sweet and spiritually rich body of theological writings he composed. Bernard said the following regarding the wounds of Jesus^[1]:

“Where can the weak find a place of firm security and peace, except in the wounds of the Savior? They pierced his hands and feet and opened his side with a spear. The piercing nail has become a key to unlock the door. The sword pierced his soul and came close to his heart. Through these sacred wounds we can see the secret of his heart, the great mystery of love, the sincerity of his mercy with which he visited us from on high.

“Where have your love, your mercy, your compassion shone out more luminously than in your wounds? My merit comes from his mercy. Where sin abounded grace has overflowed. And if the Lord’s mercies are from all ages for ever, I too will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever.”

The river that flows from the pierced side of our Savior is indeed a channel of grace that leads upwards to a heart deep within. There, we find a place of refuge, the source of our medicine. There, we find mercy and love that overcomes all our struggles with sin and the regrets we find hard to shake.

As he did with the Apostle Thomas, Jesus, in his great mercy, is willing to meet us on our level. The great 15^th century spiritual writer, Thomas à Kempis, in his devotional book, Imitation of Christ, said it this way: “If you cannot soar up as high as Christ sitting on his throne, behold him hanging on his cross. Rest in Christ's Passion and live willingly in his holy wounds.”

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, we contemplate and rest in Jesus’s wounds—wounds which once were a source of pain for him and a source of shame to us. But now, like radiant jewels, they reveal to us his mercy and are the source where you and I can find healing. His mercy is free. We need only acknowledge our need of it and to desire it. In receiving it, we can then be more effectively, agents of this mercy for others, for a world that so greatly needs to know the healing of Jesus.

^[1] https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/wounds-of-christ-saint-bernard/