Second Sunday of Easter, Year C
First Reading: Acts 5:12-16
Second Readings: Rv 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19
Gospel Reading: Jn 20:19-31

This Sunday is Divine Mercy Sunday.

We all need God’s mercy. “If we say, ‘We are free of the guilt of sin,’ we deceive ourselves,” St. John said.

Aren’t guilt feelings psychologically unhealthy?

No; not if we have really done wrong.

Isn’t it enough to give to charity and avoid stealing, murdering, committing adultery, etc.?

No, says St. John Henry Newman. Such people “walk by their own light, not by the true Light.” They settle for a standard they can easily keep: what satisfies the world rather than God.

Doesn’t God love us just as we are?

Yes, but too much to leave us there; he wants to make us perfect.

Doesn’t God forgive all our sins?

Yes, but we must understand what “forgive” means. Otherwise, we may continue sinning because we presume God will forgive us, or because we despair of his forgiveness.

First: Forgiving does not mean excusing. Forgiveness says, “You have done wrong, but I will not hold it against you.” Excusing says, “It was not your fault.”

What is excusable does not need forgiveness. When we sin, God excuses whatever is excusable. It is what remains – the intentional, the inexcusable – that he will forgive.

Second: Forgiving does not mean overlooking or ignoring. When Christ assumed our sins, he suffered what they deserved – all of it. There is no fault so small that he can ignore it or overlook it.

To be forgiven, then, we must recognize and admit our guilt. However, we must also intend to change. That means praying constantly for God’s help, acquiring the self-knowledge necessary to avoid situations where we will probably be tempted again, and turning to Jesus the instant temptation comes: “Jesus, I trust in You.”

We must also be sorry for our sins, whatever our motive – even fear of hell. God will forgive us on almost any terms, no matter how insulting and humiliating to Him.

Finally, we ourselves must forgive others.

Sin ruptures our relationship with God. In forgiving us, God restores that relationship. However, sin also damages our relationship with the Church, Christ’s Mystical Body. Therefore, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “reconciliation with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God.”

Accordingly, Jesus told us to say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

“If you forgive the faults of others, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours,” he stressed. “If you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you.”

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son – or rather “the Merciful Father” – he showed us how to forgive one another.

First, we decide to do it. “Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil,” Pope St. John Paul II said.

Second, we ask God to help us kill our resentment every time it re-surfaces. “It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offence,” says the Catechism; “but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.”

It is difficult to forgive. However, it can be equally difficult to accept forgiveness – from others or from God. It takes humility.

Despair is the sin of deliberately giving up “all hope of salvation,” refusing God’s forgiveness on the grounds that we are too wicked to be saved, or that God has cast us off. It is “a grave crime against God’s goodness.”

“Leave agonizing too much over your sins, black as they are,” says author Ellis Peters; “there isn’t a confessor in the land who hasn’t heard worse and never turned a hair. It’s a kind of arrogance to be so certain you’re past redemption.”

God’s unlimited mercy is there for the asking. Let us not put any obstacle in the way of our acceptance.

Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English. The whole course is available in written form and Sessions 1-29 in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Session 30, “Bearing Witness: Living as a Catholic,” will be available in YouTube form starting April 24.