4/27/2025 - 2nd Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy Sunday

Quality of Our Doubt and Journey to Certitude

The Church designated this second Sunday of Easter as the Feast of Divine Mercy. It is a great opportunity for us to reflect on God’s loving mercy for us, and how we ought to respond to it. The resurrection of Jesus is essentially linked to His great mercy; His victory is the fruit of His great Passion. That is why, in His appearances after His resurrection, Jesus showed His hands pierced by the nails, and His side torn open by the soldier’s lance and from which flowed out blood and water. He purposely did not erase these wounds as concrete proofs of His great mercy for the entire humanity that won our victory over sin and death. He also gave the power to the Apostles and through them to the priests, to grant forgiveness to every soul that repents at the Sacrament of Reconciliation. What a gift to humanity! Forgiveness at no cost, just the words, “Forgive me father for I have sinned.”

Pope John Paul II, in his homily in Rome during the canonization of St. Faustina on April 30, 2000 declared: “Jesus shows His hands and His side to the Apostles. He points, that is, to the wounds of the Passion, especially the wound in His heart, the source from which flows the great wave of mercy poured out on humanity.” Ponder the image of the Divine Mercy and all your curt defiance or reluctant obeyance will turn to gratitude for this precious gift of unconditional forgiveness at every confessional.

Our Gospel from John 20 tells us that when the risen Christ first appeared to the disciples, Thomas was absent. Upon hearing their testimony, he famously declared, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in His side, I will not believe” (Jn 20:25). This demand for tangible proof has often been interpreted as a lack of faith, but a closer reading reveals a more nuanced picture. Thomas’s doubt was not rooted in cynicism or rejection; rather, it was the honest struggle of a passionate disciple who longed for authentic encounter and truth.

As some reflections note, Thomas did not doubt the Resurrection in the abstract, nor did he abandon the community of believers. He remained among the apostles, wrestling with his uncertainty but still seeking Christ. His skepticism was not that of an unbeliever, but of one who desperately wanted to believe, yet needed assurance. We should dwell deeper on the label of ‘doubting Thomas’ to arrive at our own journey of faith.

A week later, Jesus appears again, this time with Thomas present. Rather than rebuke him harshly, Jesus invites Thomas to touch His wounds: “Put your finger here; look, here are My hands. Give Me your hand; put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving anymore but believe” (Jn 20:27). In this intimate gesture, Christ meets Thomas at his point of need, transforming doubt into faith. Thomas’s response, “My Lord and my God!” is the most explicit confession of Jesus’ divinity in the entire Scripture.

This encounter is not merely about Thomas’s personal journey; it is a divine pedagogy. As Pope St. Gregory the Great observed, it was by divine design that Thomas doubted, touched, and believed—so that the wound of disbelief in all ages might be healed through his witness. Thomas’s need for evidence becomes the occasion for Christ to affirm the reality of His bodily Resurrection, dispelling any notion that the disciples saw only a ghost or had a hallucination or the women at the empty tomb were hysterical or the story of the disciples walking to Emmaus is just a pedagogical tale.

The impact of this event on the certitude of the Resurrection is profound. Thomas’s insistence on physical proof, and Jesus’ willingness to provide it, serves as a powerful apologetic for the reality of the Resurrection. The Gospel does not shy away from recording the apostles’ doubts and struggles; instead, it presents them honestly, allowing their eventual conviction to serve as a foundation for us and the faith of future generations.

The transformation of Thomas from skeptic to believer, and ultimately to a missionary and martyr, underscores the authenticity of the Resurrection. Tradition and history holds that Thomas carried the Gospel as far as India, shedding his blood for the faith he once struggled to accept. The tomb at Mylapore (San Thome, Chennai) is traditionally identified as St. Thomas’ burial site. I have prayerfully visited this shrine several times. The bricks used in the tomb are reportedly similar in age and style to those of the first-century Roman trading station at Arikamedu, lending archaeological plausibility to tradition. The existence of ancient Christian communities in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, (South India) known as the St. Thomas Christians, is often cited as indirect evidence. These communities claim apostolic origins and maintain oral traditions linking their foundation to St. Thomas. His journey assures us that faith is not the absence of doubt, but the willingness to seek, to question, and to be open to the encounter with the living Christ. Fr Tom Kunnel, C.O