Appearance to the Disciples

Today's Reflections

Appearance to the Disciples 

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Jn 20:19-31

¹⁹On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹[Jesus] said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²²And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. ²³Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

²⁴Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” ²⁶Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” ²⁸Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of [his] disciples that are not written in this book. ³¹But these are written that you may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

Reflection:

Peace be with you. The greatest attribute of God is mercy. God is love. But love that stoops to weakness, poverty, suffering, and sinfulness is mercy. Because we are weak and sinful, the Lord shows his love to us as mercy.

The risen Jesus shows mercy to his disciples when, on meeting them together for the first time, after they almost to a man abandoned him, he grants them mercy by saying to them, “Peace be with you” not once but twice, and a third with Thomas present. Having made them experience his mercy, Jesus gives them the Holy Spirit and commissions them to grant mercy to others: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.”

We, too, have received God’s mercy. Let us proclaim and pass on that mercy to other people by sharing it with them, by showing mercy to others through forgiveness and acts of compassion. And let us pray that other people, too, may know, welcome, receive, and pass on the mercy of God.

Be a living sign of God’s mercy received

and God’s mercy passed on.