Reflection on the Mass Readings: Sunday April 15, 2007

This Sunday's Gospel: John 20:19-31 The Risen Lord's Message of Healing and Forgiveness!

The Risen Christ fulfilled His promise to his disciples when He said in John 14:16-17 that He would send the Holy Spirit by breathing that very same Holy Spirit upon them. This life-bringing, truth-revealing, sin-convicting, comfort-giving Spirit is also a Spirit of mercy and forgiveness. Just as we receive God's forgiveness for our sins, so we are exhorted and given the grace to forgive those who sin against us. If we refuse to forgive others, we will miss the great blessing of freedom that God offers to us freely. With forgiveness comes freedom, He want's us to experience the emotional healing that comes only from working through our anger and hurt by releasing it to God.

It is by the Holy Spirit of God that our addictions, emotional scars and hurts can be healed and our painful past redeemed. Yet, many of us doubt the promise of Christ, just as Thomas did. He refused to believe in Jesus' resurrection until he saw and felt the risen Christ with his own eyes and hands. When we struggle with addictions and emotional scars, we often experience doubts. We have a very hard time believing that God is at work in our life when we don't see immediate changes or miraculous results. Recovering from any addiction or healing past hurts can be a painstaking process without much to show for it at first. Even when evidence of God's power is not immediate, we must persevere in faith, then we will experience the peace that comes from trusting God with our present struggles and our unknown future.* The apostle Saint Paul, summed this whole process up in Hebrews 12:1-14 when he said:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us ² while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God. ³ Consider how he endured such opposition from sinners, in order that you may not grow weary and lose heart. ⁴ In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. ⁵ You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons: "My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; ⁶ for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges." ⁷ Endure your trials as "discipline"; God treats you as sons. For what "son" is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ If you are without discipline, in which all have shared, you are not sons but bastards. ⁹ Besides this, we have had our earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not (then) submit all the more to the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰ They disciplined us for a short time as seemed right to them, but he does so for our benefit, in order that we may share his holiness.¹¹ At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. ¹² So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. ¹³ Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed. ¹⁴ Strive for peace with everyone, and for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord.