Without God’s mercy, you and I and all people would spend eternity in hell, in the clutches of Satan. Our lives here on earth would be an uninterrupted death march of suffering and grief, exceeded in its misery only by what awaited us after death. Life without God’s mercy would make the COVID-19 crisis seem a luxury cruise.

It is more than fortunate for us that such a scenario is purely hypothetical. But there is no point in saying anything about Divine Mercy Sunday if we don’t first understand how badly, how desperately we need God’s mercy. And that means we need to understand something about sin.

Pope Francis once gave an interview in which the first question concerned how he would describe himself. The Holy Father summarized his personal identity in four words. He said, “I am a sinner.”

But wait! Isn’t Pope Francis the nice pope? Isn’t he all about loosening up the Catholic Church? Doesn’t he just love everybody and forget about sin? Didn’t he say, “Who am I to judge?”

Pope Francis is a man of kindness and compassion, but he did not come to loosen up the Church, at least not in her essential laws and teachings. No pope can do that. And the Holy Father did once say, “Who am I to judge?” But the reason he said it was not to deny that other people are sinners. He said it to affirm that he, too, is a sinner. He said it to acknowledge that while we can see sin all around us and should judge it as evil, we can’t know the freedom and knowledge with which others commit those sins. We can’t judge how guilty they are.

Over the years, I have often preached and written about the peace of Christ, the peace He offers His apostles three times in this Sunday’s Gospel (John 20:19-31). And one of the early points I usually make is that peace is not merely the absence of conflict, but a much fuller and richer reality.

But even though the peace of Christ means so much, it does require the absence of conflict. Namely, Christ’s peace demands that we stop fighting against God. Our rebellion needs to end! And sin is an act of rebellion.

Pope Francis is a man of kindness and compassion, but he did not come to loosen up the Church, at least not in her essential laws and teachings. No pope can do that. And the Holy Father did once say, “Who am I to judge?” But the reason he said it was not to deny that other people are sinners. He said it to affirm that he, too, is a sinner.

Christ has conquered sin and death in His own death and resurrection. He has won the definitive victory over the rebellion of Satan, the demons, and sinful humanity. 

And yet Christ leaves us free. And because we are free we must choose to lay down our weapons and surrender to God. 

Baptism, the first sacrament by which we share in the victory of Christ, is both a mystical death and a resurrection. It is a death to sin and a rising to new life in Christ. But while there is a once-and-for-all consequence to baptism, we still must make a choice for Christ every day of our lives.

The sin of Adam separated us from God. It was an act of violence against our union with God. The death and rising of the New Adam, the Lord Jesus, unites us with God once again. 

But ours is still a fallen nature, and we still commit sins. And sins remain acts of violence, some of which wound our relationship with God (venial sins) and others of which separate us from Him and cause us spiritual death (mortal sins). 

Sins are always acts of rebellion and violence. They work directly against the peace of Christ. Christ’s peace fills us when we reject sin, reject the spirit of rebellion, and turn our lives over to God.

Here also a misunderstanding threatens, however. Just as we can forget the reality of sin and its destructive nature, so too we can lapse into thinking that we’re making a fair deal with God when we offer our lives to Him and receive His peace.

There’s no fair deal here. We’re not trading on equal terms with God. 

God’s mercy, and not mere justice, is at work from the beginning to the end of this journey. But that mercy is especially powerful here, at the moment when we reject our sins, offer our lives to God, and receive His forgiveness and peace. This especially happens in the sacraments of baptism and penance (confession).

St. Paul teaches that it was precisely when we were sinners that the Son of God came among us and died to save us. That’s what mercy is. It is the love of God offered when we least deserve it. Mercy involves God withholding the punishment due to us sinners and offering us forgiveness, grace, and peace.

The “bad news” about sin and punishment is really, really bad. But we don’t talk about this bad news for its own sake. We think and talk about the bad news so that we might more fully appreciate the incredible, unfathomable blessing of the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ.

God’s love is more powerful than sin. And God gives His love lavishly to the world and to each of us. No matter how badly you feel about people being hurt or dying from COVID-19, no matter how much you love them, God’s love for each of them is infinitely greater than yours or mine.

God’s love is more powerful than sin. And God gives His love lavishly to the world and to each of us. No matter how badly you feel about people being hurt or dying from COVID-19, no matter how much you love them, God’s love for each of them is infinitely greater than yours or mine.

Christ has done more and is doing more for us right now in this crisis than anyone else — than everyone else combined. Christ loves you more than anyone else, right now during your experience of this crisis. He is with you and He is offering you His help and support.

God may seem to us to be silent, on the sidelines. But He is not! He is always watching, always working, always calling us to Himself and giving us the grace to persevere. He always loves us with an active love. And He calls us to love Him and our neighbor with His own love. St. Paul writes that God’s love has been poured into our hearts and impels our discipleship.

We know we need God’s mercy. We know God gives us His mercy. And we need to share that mercy with others. We need to share it with politicians we don’t like, even when we vigorously disagree with them. Heck, even when we actively oppose them we must still be merciful toward them. The same goes for your annoying relatives or friends on Facebook, for the person going the wrong way in the one-way aisle at the grocery store, or for the people you see grouped together in the park when you know they aren’t part of the same household.

Perhaps especially right now, we need to show mercy to those we live with. It is one of life’s most difficult ironies that the people we love the most, the people with whom we have the closest relationships, are often the people we have the hardest time being merciful toward. 

In Sunday’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles (2:42-47), we see the early Church devoted to the communal life. That sounds great, and it is great, but you better believe it was also tough for them to live in common! It’s pretty tough for us to do that, too, especially when the people we live with are the only people we’re able to be together with.

It is essential that we know our own faults, that we thank God for the mercy He shows us despite our faults, and that we show His mercy to others, even though we might be right in seeing that they’ve done something wrong. 

That’s what mercy is. That’s who God is. And that’s who we are called to be.