Redemptive Mercies

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Risen Jesus, touch me and transform me through the redemptive power of your mercy. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Last Sunday we celebrated the feast of Divine Mercy giving importance to the scriptural readings. This Sunday’s readings also remind us of the redemptive mercies of the Lord. The redemptive power of the resurrection and the response that enables the believers to appropriate it, viz., repentance form part of the two aspects of this mercy.

In the first reading from Acts (3:13-15, 17-19), Luke presents Peter preaching to his Jewish brothers and sisters the good news that God’s gracious offer of salvation did not expire on the cross. On the contrary, the power of Jesus’ resurrection reaches into the past, present and future with its redemptive mercies. Even though many of them had not availed themselves of those mercies prior to Jesus’ resurrection, Peter assured his fellow Jews that they could still do so. All that would be necessary for them to know the redemptive power of Jesus-risen was an act of repentance. Do this, says Luke through Peter, “so that your sins may be wiped away!”

The second reading (1 John 2:1-5) assures the repentant that the risen Jesus continues to act as our intercessor. Through the saving sacrifice of himself, he has redeemed us of our sins. This redemption is not ours exclusively but it is for the sins of the whole world as well. This is the real miracle of the resurrection. In spite of the evil, ugliness and pain of the world, at the centre of this world’s reality is the Divine Lover, keeping watch over all. In spite of our failures, our rejection of love, our pettiness, our destructiveness, our violence, God loves us and continues to reach out to us and to offer us the redemptive power of resurrection.

That same power is celebrated in today’s gospel (Lk 24:35-48) wherein the risen Lord appears to his own and commissions them to “preach penance for the remission of sins to all the nations.” When Cleopas and his friend told of their Emmaus experience to the Eleven and their companions, and when the Eleven and the others shared with the Emmaus travellers their own experience of the risen Jesus, a community was born and a mission was inaugurated – all through the power of the resurrection. All of this has come about to proclaim together to all people that death does not have the last word, that hope is real and God is alive.