April 7, 2024

Second Sunday of Easter Cycle B

Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31

If you have ever worked for a large corporation, you know that there comes a time when someone high up in the organization comes to town and meets with some of the workers. Now usually there is an understanding that everyone is to talk up the local office or plant, that local management wants to make a good impression on the VIP so that the company will continue to invest in that location and not have something bad happen during the next reorganization. This results in what I have always called “flowery corporate happy talk.” And it is why big corporations generally stop becoming bigger and start failing: they don't deal with the real issues that are happening and instead paper them over and hope they go away, which they usually do not. My grandfather worked his whole adult life for a company called Kodak in Rochester, New York. Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975, but because they didn't want to make the changes necessary to invest in this new industry until it was too late, they watched their existing products become obsolete and the company went bankrupt. Fortunately for my family, my grandfather had retired by that time, but many other families in Rochester were not so lucky.

This story came to mind when I was reading the first reading today. Saint Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles, paints a very idealistic picture of the early Christian Church. With phrases such as “of one heart and mind” [Acts 4:32 NABRE] and “there was no needy person among them” [v. 34], one wonders whether this is a biblical version of “flowery corporate happy talk.” When anyone mentions the “good old days,” they want to talk about the good times that they remember, which is a very human need to feel that there has been value to their lives and the heritage they are a part of. This is what Saint Luke is doing here, I think. Right after the events of Easter, the Ascension, and Pentecost, there was a real surge of Christian zeal to take the Good News to everyone who would listen, and the early Christians were willing to set aside their own differences for the needs of the new community.

However, this perfect ideal would not last. Saint Luke himself will discuss in the very next chapter a couple named Ananias and Sapphira. They will lie to the apostles about what they have provided the community and be punished by God. And then in the next chapter, Luke will discuss conflicts between the Hebrew-speaking and the Greek-speaking people in the community and charges of unfair food distribution [Acts 6:1ff]. And although the passage for the second reading does not capture it, the whole reason that this letter from Saint John was written in the first place was to address disputes that had arisen in that community. So why did Luke paint the early Christians as so perfect?

We all need a target to shoot for. To grow and get better, we need to know what better looks like. We need to continue to work towards this our whole lives. But Christ knew that we would struggle with this. He asks us to try anyway. If we don't try hard enough, we can become cynical, and a Christian must not become cynical. If we become discouraged when we try and fail, we can become pessimistic, and a Christian must not become pessimistic. Jesus speaks to us today about this in the Gospel.

Saint Thomas exemplifies both of these things. If you remember the story of the death and resuscitation of Lazarus, when Jesus was told about the death of his friend, he told his disciples that they needed to go back to Jerusalem, which is the center of the powers that want to do away with Jesus. The next thing we are told is, “So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go to [Jerusalem to] die with [Jesus]” [John 11:16]. Talk about cynical. Then today, after the events of Holy Week, after the horrific crucifixion of Jesus, even though he has heard Jesus foretell his resurrection, he is now so pessimistic about it that he won't believe his own friends when they tell him that they have seen the risen Lord.

So Jesus does four things to help the apostles, including Thomas. First, he gives them his peace. He shows that he is not angry that they abandoned him on Cavalry, but instead, with the first words out of his mouth, he says “Peace be with you” [John 20:19]. Second, he teaches them to admit to their failures and to forgive one another when they ask for forgiveness for those failures. Thirdly, He also breathes the Holy Spirit on them to strengthen them in their mission. Finally, he demonstrates forgiveness in action when he shows Thomas the error of being cynical or pessimistic.

Jesus today teaches us important lessons about being Christians. Did it work with Saint Thomas? History says that it did. I'm sure Saint Thomas still had moments of doubt, as we all do, and I'm sure that he failed at times to live up to the ideal of Christian life. But he overcame those doubts, those moments of cynicism and pessimism, to become one of the great evangelizers, taking the gospel message to lands east of Palestine, all the way to what is modern-day India, some say maybe even to China. The Indian church considers Saint Thomas to be their founder and patron saint. He accomplished great things when he was given the graces of Christ.

This lesson also fits with our celebration today of Divine Mercy Sunday. Through his death on the cross, symbolized by the outflowing of blood and water from his side when pierced by the lance, Christ offers to us, as he did Saint Thomas, his great mercy for all the times when we've not been able to live up to the ideal of our baptismal commitments. God forgives us, and we forgive others in turn. Unless you are falling into a state of cynicism or pessimism, or possibly putting on rose-colored glasses and believing your own flowery corporate happy talk about how great a person you are, we should all gratefully ask our Savior for his divine mercy and resolve to better conform ourselves to the ideal of those early Christians, who in truth needed that same divine mercy themselves.

As we continue with the Liturgy of the Eucharist, let this shared sacrament that is communion draw us collectively into a community united in our ideal of Christian love. May the blessings promised to Saint Faustina come to all of us on this Divine Mercy Sunday. As Christians, we should never fall into a sense of naivete, feeling that everything is as good as it can get, or into a sense of cynicism or pessimism, that things will never be better. So let us all commit to living up to our baptismal promises and, through the Holy Spirit, both receive the mercy of God as well as give it to all people we encounter in all aspects of our lives, and work towards making our family, Church, and world a more merciful and just place.