The readings today lead us to a God Who always desires for us to remain in communion with Him and if we sin, that we seek in sacramental ways the mercy and reconciliation necessary to achieve reunion with Him.

We are, a sacramental People and as Catholics we depend on these seven ‘outward signs’ as the conduit of God’s grace. If we deny the sacraments we deny our hope for eternal life.

The Gospel today gives us Thomas, the doubter, who represents us in our frailty and sin. He who could not see with his own eyes the truths proclaimed to him, refuses in his own human stubbornness to believe that Jesus had been raised

We cannot judge him, because in doing so we would be judging ourselves. Instead we allow Thomas to approach Jesus and confront the demons that haunt him and Lord who loves him.

At the same time, the Gospel reveals the Redeemer who challenges Thomas with His resurrection by holding forth the wounds of His passion. It is only through these wounds that we ourselves can experience Divine Mercy. Jesus is showing us that the authentic and objective teaching of the Church is the only way to recognize the risen Lord. Seeing the truth and encountering it in the wounds of Jesus, Thomas surrenders himself and is reconciled by accepting, mercy with humility through the words, “my Lord and my God”

The Gospel challenges us today not to be overwhelmed by a secular society, which insists that God is dead, because that belief only alienates us from God and from one another. We are less human without God.

If we would receive His mercy as a gift instead of a trial and actively surrender to Christ in humility, we can lead others to Christ and fulfill our baptismal mission to go out to the entire world and proclaim the Good News!

It will be this joy that converts hearts to God. Be disciples of mercy by allowing each person to enter into dialogue with God, giving them the opportunity to soak in the drops of living water that touch them in our sacramental rites and support them with authentic catechesis.

My friends let us leave here impressed by the wounds that saved us and by the heart that loves us. Let us follow the perfect attributes of a merciful redeemer and walk humbly with God.