Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday) 2025

 My aunts Margaret Randall and Sr. Mary Elizabeth Looby when they were toddlers.  They are twin sisters.  The apostle Thomas' name means "twin".  Who was his twin?

Did you notice what John calls Thomas in today’s Gospel?

“Thomas, called Didymus”—which means Twin.

But here’s the thing: the Gospel never tells us who Thomas’s twin actually is. There’s no sibling mentioned. No other Thomas walking around.

Maybe that’s the point.

Maybe you are the twin. Maybe I am.

Maybe Thomas is meant to be a mirror—a reflection of us in all our confusion and questions and longings. 

Because let’s be honest: we all have a little Thomas in us. We want to believe, but we also want proof. 

We say we trust in God, but sometimes we hold back. We pray for peace, but we’re still anxious. We proclaim Christ is risen, but still carry grief or regret.

And here’s the Good News: Jesus meets Thomas—meets us—right where we are.

Let’s step into that upper room. The disciples are huddled behind locked doors, not sure what’s next. And suddenly, Jesus stands in their midst and speaks one word that changes everything:
“Peace.”

He says it not once, but three times in today’s Gospel: “Peace be with you.”

That’s not just a greeting. That’s the risen Christ speaking directly into their fear. Into our fear. Into our doubts, our pain, our worry.

And then He breathes on them.

It’s a deliberate act—echoing the very breath of God in Genesis, when He breathed life into Adam. Here, the Risen Christ breathes new life into His disciples—into the Church—and gives them the Holy Spirit. And with that Spirit comes a mission:

“Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.”

The first gift of Easter, the first fruit of the resurrection, is mercy.

Not punishment. Not judgment. But mercy.

That’s what today is all about—Divine Mercy Sunday. A day that celebrates this truth: God’s mercy is bigger than our fear, stronger than our shame, deeper than our doubts.

And then comes Thomas. He missed that first encounter. Maybe that’s also a quiet reminder to us: when we miss the gathering of the Church, we miss something of the Risen Jesus. 

But Jesus doesn’t leave Thomas behind. He returns. He meets him. He offers His wounds. He says, “Put your finger here… bring your hand… do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

And then Thomas—our twin—makes the most powerful profession of faith in all the Gospels:
“My Lord and my God!”

Notice: he doesn’t say, “You are the Lord” or “That was amazing!” He says: “My Lord… my God.”

That’s the moment of resurrection faith: not just believing that Jesus rose, but recognizing that He is alive for me. That His wounds were for me. That His mercy reaches my heart, my doubts, my past.

The readings today also show what that kind of faith does in the world. In the Acts of the Apostles, the once-frightened disciples are now healing the sick, casting out evil, drawing crowds. 

People hope that even Peter’s shadow might fall on their loved ones. That’s how much they believe in the power of the Risen Lord working through the Church.

And that’s the invitation to us today, too:
To let His mercy work through us.
To become people who bring peace, healing, and forgiveness to a wounded world.
To be the “shadow” of Christ for someone else.

So yes, maybe we are Thomas’s twin. But maybe we’re meant to follow him in his journey—from doubt to belief, from fear to faith, from “I need proof” to “My Lord and my God!”

Today, as we gather to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday, we do so with heavy hearts, as we mourn the death of Pope Francis—the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, and a man whose life and ministry were a living witness to the mercy of God.

When I met him during a pilgrimage in 2017, I had the extraordinary blessing of concelebrating Mass with him in his chapel and greeting him afterward.

He looked me in the eye and said something he often said to many—but it struck me deeply in that moment. He simply asked, “Please pray for me.”

I have. And I will.

And now, we pray for him in a different way. We entrust him to the mercy he so often preached. 

We lift him to the Lord whom he loved and served. 

And we take to heart his own example: a Church of compassion, a Church that walks with the poor, a Church that lives mercy.

So today, as we echo the words of Thomas—“My Lord and my God”—let’s also echo the words of Francis:
“Please pray for me.”

Let’s pray for him.
Let’s live what he lived.
And let’s carry Divine Mercy into the world he loved so deeply.