The Wounds of the Risen Jesus
This Sunday concludes the Octave of Easter. An octave is a celebration of eight days in the Church and each day is honored liturgically in the same way as the day in which the octave began, in this case Easter Sunday. With the liturgical reforms of the late 60’s and early 70’s, only two octaves remain in the ordinary form of the Church’s liturgical calendar: the octaves of Easter and Christmas. While the octave may be finishing, the joy of the Easter Season continues.
The Gospel for this weekend, the Second of Sunday of Easter, is popularly known as the Gospel of Doubting Thomas. Here our Lord appears to Thomas, and the other ten Apostles, and invites Thomas to see and probe his wounds so that Thomas might believe that the Lord is truly risen and that he is who he says he is. While the Lord’s body has been changed and glorified, the wounds from his crucifixion remain. Theologians have marveled over this reality for 2,000 years and posed various reasons as to why. As in the case of St. Thomas the Apostle, the wounds identify the Lord for who he is, and they also tell us what death is not; death is no longer an eternal reality for those who live and die in God’s friendship. The marks of the Lord’s death remain, but death has no power over him, and through him neither over us. St. Leo the great says it more eloquently in a homily on the Lord’s Passion: He did away with the everlasting character of death so as to make death a thing of time, not of eternity.
As we continue our journey through this Easter Season, let us turn to the risen Lord to draw newness of life from him, remembering that the wounds and the scars of our present lives, painful as they may be, are only things of the here and now; in the Resurrection on the last day, when Christ makes us new, those things will be no more.
Divine Mercy Holy Hour - Cathedral
This Sunday in the Church is also known as Divine Mercy Sunday. In visits to St. Faustina, a Polish nun, our Lord stated that He wished that the gift of his divine mercy be celebrated on the Second Sunday of Easter as the “Feast of Mercy.” In honor of Divine Mercy Sunday, our Cathedral is hosting a city-wide holy hour with veneration of the image of our Lord, confessions, and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament from 2PM-3PM this Sunday, April 16th.
Thank You!
I wish to thank all those who helped with our liturgical celebrations during Holy Week. Thank you to our readers, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, ushers & greeters, servers, those who beautified the church environment, our facilities crew who moved many chairs and did a lot of cleaning, and to all our singers and musicians for the tremendous work that they put into our Holy Week liturgies. We had some truly wonderful liturgies for Holy Week which I believe offered fitting worship in thanksgiving to our God for his goodness; I hope that you found our celebrations spiritually rich and enjoyable too.
Blessings of Easter joy & peace to you and yours for the week ahead!
Father Chris House