Divine Mercy Sunday

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When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. — John 20:20

On this Second Sunday of Easter, the Church turns our eyes to the Risen Christ, whose first words to His fearful apostles are simple and divine: “Peace be with you.”

He does not begin with reproach. He does not chastise Peter for his denial, nor the others for their flight. He enters the locked room and speaks shalom — that deep biblical peace that restores what sin has broken, reconciles what was estranged, and binds together what was shattered.

Saint Augustine defines peace not merely as the absence of conflict but as “tranquillitas ordinis” — “the tranquility of order” (De Civitate Dei, XIX, 13). True peace, he teaches, is the harmony that arises when all things are rightly ordered under God, when love reigns and justice is fulfilled.

The apostles are not yet at peace. They are behind locked doors, imprisoned by fear and shame. Yet the peace Christ brings is not an emotion — it is a gift. It flows from His victory over sin and death. Saint Thomas Aquinas, following Augustine, writes that “peace is the work of justice, and the effect of charity” (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 29, a. 3, ad 1). For Aquinas, peace is not passive stillness but the ordered calm of a soul united to God in love. Because Christ, through His Passion and Resurrection, has restored the right order between humanity and God, He alone can truly say: “Peace be with you.”

When Jesus speaks peace, He immediately shows them His wounds. The Risen Christ does not conceal the marks of His Passion. His glorified body still bears the nails and the spear — not as scars of failure, but as luminous signs of love. These wounds are the fountains of mercy, the visible tokens of invisible grace. As the prophet Isaiah foretold, “By His wounds we are healed” (Is 53:5).

The same hands that were once pierced now confer the Spirit and the power to forgive. “As the Father has sent Me, so I send you … Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them” (Jn 20:21-23). The peace of Christ overflows immediately into mission; the mercy He gives becomes the mercy we must offer.

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, the Church rejoices in this living image of compassion. The Risen Lord does not wait for our perfection — He steps into fear with forgiveness, into shame with peace. His mercy is not sentiment but substance, the very life of God poured into wounded humanity.

Then there is Thomas. Absent when the Lord first appears, he refuses to believe without seeing. Yet when Jesus comes again, He meets Thomas not with anger, but invitation: “Put your finger here and see my hands; and bring your hand and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believe” (Jn 20:27).

Thomas touches love incarnate, and faith bursts forth from his lips: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28). This is not mere recognition of Jesus’ survival; it is the highest confession of faith in all the Gospels — a declaration of divinity. In those wounds, Thomas sees the mercy of God Himself. 

The same faith that transformed Thomas is offered to us at every Mass, where the Risen Lord again stands before His Church, saying, “Peace be with you.”

Saint Peter, in Sunday’s Second Reading, reminds us that faith opens into joy: “Although you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith — the salvation of your souls” (1 Pt 1:8-9).

That is the call of Easter: to live in peace, to be shaped by mercy, and to radiate joy. The peace of Christ is not withdrawal from the world, but transformation within it. The wounds of Christ are not erased from history; they become the channels through which grace enters it.

Dear brothers and sisters, the Risen Christ still stands among us and speaks the same word: “Peace be with you.” Let His peace dwell in your hearts. Let His wounds be your strength. Let His mercy be your mission.

And let the confession of Thomas be our own: “My Lord and my God.”

May we go forth as Easter people — not only to believe in peace but to live it, not only to receive mercy but to show it, not only to rejoice in the Resurrection but to embody it. 

Christ is risen! He is truly risen! Alleluia!