Low Sunday 2009
Today is traditionally called Low Sunday because it ends the Octave of Easter, the Eight days of celebration after Easter. Easter is the greatest feast day in the Church and each of these eight days is celebrated as Easter itself. Of the two Sundays, today and Easter Sunday, today is the lesser, thus Low Sunday. The newly baptized also wore their white robes all 8 days—with today being the last day.
It is also called Thomas Sunday because of the Gospel reading: St Thomas doubts Jesus’ resurrection—I must put my fingers in the nail marks and my hand in his side, though the Gospel says he saw and believed. He didn’t touch the marks as the Renaissance painters liked to portray.
The Gospel also tells us that Jesus breathed on the disciples, giving them the Holy Spirit. In the same breath he told them to forgive sins. I like the symbolism: he breathes on them, giving them life, just as God gave Adam and Eve life in Genesis, through his own breath. The Holy Spirit gives us God’s life within us. This gift of God is his love for us. He goes beyond the justice we deserve and gives us of his bountiful mercy, this mercy motivated by his boundless love for us. In this great love and mercy he tells the apostles to forgive everyone’s sins. At the Last Supper these apostles became our first priests and bishops, though the office names and distinctions developed in time. Now in this post-resurrection encounter he commands them to forgive sins.
I mention this dimension because today is most recently named Divine Mercy Sunday by Pope John Paul II, of happy memory. He made this proclamation in collaboration with Sr Faustina Kowalska and her Divine Mercy devotions. As we talk about these things it is important to mention that this, just as all private revelation, is approved or condemned by the Church to aid us in living our baptismal promises. If the revelations help us to live our faith and nurture and foment our spiritual life and animate our community life, then it is good to use them. If they do not, then we should leave them behind. Many find the Divine Mercy Chaplet and Sr Faustina’s autobiography beneficial, and it is a approved devotion.
Sr Faustina claimed Christ spoke to her and the messages focused on God’s Mercy. God’s Mercy is something we have always recognized, appreciated, and asked for since ancient times and in all rites of the Catholic Church. All rites include this petition today, as well. At the beginning of the Mass we, the Latin Rite, always maintained the Greek phrases Kyrie Eleison and Christe Eleison, translated and said in English today as Lord have Mercy and Christ have Mercy. We recognize ourselves as sinners and ask God to have mercy on us, to heap his bountiful love on us, to forgive our sins, and to welcome us back into his family, as the Father to his Prodigal Son.
It is fitting for us to reflect on this theme at the end of the Easter Octave, after just living Holy Week where we reflected on Christ’s Passion and Death; He suffered out of Love for us and his Father. He poured His life out for us, died, and then conquered death by His resurrection, offering eternal life to those of us who accept it. He asks us to be open to accept his love and mercy, repent of our sins, confess our sins, receive his forgiveness through the priest, and live with Him now so we will live with him in eternal happiness after this life.
God’s loving Mercy and Forgiveness is not merited—we don’t merit it. We only have to accept it and return his gift of love to him again, as our own gift.
