Divine Mercy Sunday – Cycle B

Reflecting on John 20: 19-31

Thirty years ago my cousin Patty, the purest soul I’ve ever known, was on her way to Marianne Williamson’s class A Course in Miracles in the Bay Area. Stepping off the bus, she was approached by an armed assailant. Doing as she’d been trained to do while living in a dangerous city in dangerous times, she dropped her purse and ran for her life. He shot her in the back anyway. Risen One, where was your MERCY then?

Three weeks ago another young man suffering from mental illness, armed to the teeth with combat weapons he bought legally, murdered ten beautiful humans in a grocery store. Risen One, where was your MERCY then?

Here in Colorado, of course, we’ve lost the Triple Crown. We can’t go to high school, the movies, or the grocery store. Young men suffering from mental illness, but clear-headed enough to plant bombs and hide assault weapons, have stripped us of the slightest veneer of safety we may feel for ourselves or for those we love. O Risen One, where is your MERCY now?

Well, the MERCY is here with us, holding out his pierced wrists and exposing his punctured side. Here, he says to us, touch my wounds. Feel my agony. Now hold out your hands and let me touch yours.

Okay. I’ll take that invitation.  Here, Jesus. Feel my wounds. I can’t look at those darling young faces, those dear older faces, and please, please don’t make me hear one single thing about the people who love them.

He touches my wounds, and holds my bleeding hands, and my broken heart. And we both weep. That’s where the MERCY is now.

Where do you most need to feel God’s MERCY now?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Easter - Cycle B