Dear Brothers and Sisters, Fiat!
We know that each Sunday we commemorate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but in this period after Easter, Sunday takes on an even more illuminating significance. In the Tradition of the Church, this Sunday, the first after Easter, was called “Domenica in albis”. What does this mean? The expression is meant to recall the Rite performed by those who had received Baptism at the Easter Vigil. Each of them would receive a white garment — alba, bianca — to indicate their new dignity as children of God. This is still done today — infants are offered a small symbolic garment, while adults wear a proper one, as we saw at the Easter Vigil. In the past, that white garment was worn for a week, until this Sunday, from which the name in albis deponendis is derived, which means the Sunday on which the white garment is removed. In this way, when the white garment was removed, the neophytes would begin their new life in Christ and in the Church.
There is something else. In the Jubilee of the Year 2000, Saint John Paul ii established that this Sunday be dedicated to Divine Mercy. Truly, it was a beautiful insight: it was the Holy Spirit who inspired him in this way. Just a few months ago we concluded the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, and this Sunday we are invited to always hold firmly to the grace which comes from God’s mercy. Today’s Gospel is the account of the Apparition of the Risen Christ to the disciples gathered in the Upper Room (cf. Jn 20:19-31). Saint John writes that after greeting his disciples, Jesus says to them: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you”. After saying this, he makes the gesture of breathing on them and adds: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven” (vv. 21-23). This is the meaning of the mercy that is presented on the very day of Jesus’ Resurrection as the forgiveness of sins. The Risen Jesus passed on to his Church, as her first task, his own mission of bringing to all the concrete message of forgiveness. This is the first task: to announce forgiveness. This visible sign of his mercy brings with it peace of heart and joy of the renewed encounter with the Lord.
Mercy in the light of Easter enables us to perceive it as a true form of awareness. This is important: mercy is a true form of awareness. We know that it is experienced through many forms. It is experienced through the senses, it is experienced through intuition, through reason and even other forms. Well, it can also be experienced in mercy, because mercy opens the door of the mind in order to better understand the mystery of God and of our personal existence. Mercy enables us to understand that violence, rancour, vengefulness have no meaning, and the first victim is whoever feels these sentiments, because he deprives himself of his own dignity. Mercy also opens the door of the heart and allows one to express closeness especially to those who are lonely and marginalized, because it makes them feel as brothers and sisters, and as children of one Father. It favours recognition of those who need consolation and helps one find the appropriate words so as to give comfort.
Brothers and sisters, mercy warms the heart and makes it sensitive to the needs of brothers and sisters with sharing and participation. Thus, mercy requires everyone to be instruments of justice, reconciliation and peace. Let us never forget that mercy is the keystone in the life of faith, and the concrete form by which we make Jesus’ Resurrection visible.
On September 3, 1926, Jesus told Luisa that the desire for a good, for knowing it, purges the soul and disposes her intelligence to comprehend it, her memory to remember it; her will feels its appetite for it being whet, to make of it its food and life; and it moves God to give her that good and to make it known. So, the desire for a good, for knowing it, is like the appetite for food. When there is appetite, one feels the taste, eats with pleasure, remains satisfied and content with having taken that food, and is left with the desire to enjoy it again. On the other hand, if there is no appetite, that same food which is enjoyed so eagerly by someone, causes nausea and disgust to someone else who has no appetite, and he may reach the point of suffering because of it. Such is the desire for the soul - it is like appetite; and in seeing that the desire for divine things is her delight, to the point of making of them her food and life, Jesus abounds so much in giving, that He never tires of giving.
On the other hand, one who does not desire them, because the appetite is missing, will feel nausea for divine things, and that Gospel saying will be repeated: ‘It will be given to one who has, while one who does not desire God’s goods, His truths, celestial things, will be deprived of the little he has’. Just penalty for one who does not desire, has no appetite for, and wants to know nothing about the things that belong to God. And if he has any little thing at all, it is right that it be taken away from him and be given to those who possess much.
The light of my Will is more than sun which, pounding on the earth, gives with liberality the effects that its light contains; nor does it wait to be asked, but, spontaneously, as its light fills the surface of the earth, it gives what it has to everything it encounters. It gives sweetness and taste to the fruit, color and fragrance to the flower, development to the plants; to all things it gives the effects and goods it contains, it makes no exception with anyone – it is enough that its light touches them, penetrates into them and warms them for it to accomplish its work.
God’s Will is more than sun; as long as the soul exposes herself to Its vivifying rays and banishes the darkness and the night of her human will, Its light rises and invests the soul, penetrating into her inmost fibers to dispel from her the shadows and the atoms of the human will. As Its light pounds on the soul and she receives It, It communicates all the effects It contains, because, coming out of the Supreme Being, God’s Will contains all the qualities of the Divine Nature. So, in investing her, It communicates the goodness, the love, the power, the firmness, the mercy and all the divine qualities – not in a superficial way, but in a real way, such as to transmute all of Its qualities into the human nature; so much so, that the soul will feel within herself, as her own, the nature of true goodness, of power, of sweetness, of mercy; and so with all the rest of the supreme qualities. The Divine Will alone has this power to convert Its virtues into one’s nature – but only for one who abandons herself prey to Its light and to Its heat, and keeps the tenebrous night of her own will away from her, the true and perfect night of the poor creature.