“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.”

          For the past eight days, the Church has lived the one continual Day of Easter present throughout the Easter Octave. She gives us these eight days of celebration, and then a full 50-day Easter season, because what we celebrated on Easter night contains so many mysteries to unpack. So we come back to Easter Sunday on its octave day, to examine that same mystery from a new angle.

Night and day, the Paschal Candle has burned with the very fire lit from the great bonfire of the Easter Vigil. Last year, we began commissioning a yearly bespoke Paschal candle from a local artist. Last year’s theme followed our Lenten leitmotif of freedom from slavery. This year, the Paschal candle beautifully illustrates the theme of sacrifice that we have focused on throughout Lent. The first image on the candle was the sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham was not afraid to sacrifice his beloved son at God’s command, believing in God’s power to bring Isaac back from the dead (an implicit faith in the Resurrection of Christ). Just as the sacrifices of the Old Testament have been set aside by the one sacrifice of Christ – depicted immediately below, and symbolized by the Paschal lamb on the bottom of the candle – that depiction of Abraham holding the knife over Isaac has been burnt away. Never more will God demand such a sacrifice, because His beloved Son has made the one sacrifice that all the sacrifices of the Old Testament merely foreshadow.

That sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is dramatically depicted in the center of the candle. Paschal candles usually have a stylized cross, but I asked the artist to paint a Crucifixion instead. Into the cross are inserted five nails with balls of incense, pushed into the candle to represent the five wounds of Christ on the Cross in His head, hands, feet, and side.

We see today Christ inviting Thomas to touch His hands and side, to put his fingers into the nail-holes left on the glorified body of the risen Lord. These wounds remain on Christ’s glorified body as trophies of His victory, now become a fragrant offering to the Lord (thus the incense) and because His wounds now heal. Thomas’s doubts are healed by touching the saving wounds of Christ, so that he too can become a pleasing and fragrant offering to the Lord.

This year, I set a goal of breaking my previous record of 802 confessions during Lent. We blew it out of the water with 983 confessions. Those are 983 people healed by touching the saving wounds of Christ, whether it was 25 years or 1 week since their last confession, whether they were turning away from a lifetime of sin, or just seeking grace to grow in holiness and virtue.

Today we also celebrate the gift of God’s mercy. When the risen Lord appears to the Apostles together for the first time, he breathes the Holy Spirit upon them and tells them, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” The first people forgiven by His Easter gift of mercy, though, are not those whom the Apostles will forgive in the Sacrament of Penance. It is those same Apostles who abandoned Him three nights before after He was arrested. It is a restoration of their friendship, a redemption of their own betrayal.

Mercy is so much deeper than just forgiveness. The forgiveness Christ offers us in confession is essential for being restored to a state of grace and friendship with Christ. But it’s also possible for us to experience that great sacrament in a legalistic or mechanistic way. To experience the full transformative power of Christ’s mercy, we must be willing to touch the wounds, to probe deeper, to seek even greater healing.

So having said that I heard nearly a thousand confessions this Lent, and hopefully having shown through the example of my own dedication to this sacrament the very high regard in which I hold it, I want to say something slightly controversial about Confession and God’s mercy.

In Confession, we bring our sins to the light, so that the Evil One might no longer have power over that part of our life. But often, even though we confess our sins, we still hold them back in the dark, when we fear touching those wounds outside the safety and anonymity of the confessional. The deeper mercy, the full restoration of friendship, needs the Sacrament of Penance, but for the full healing and transformation God wants to bring about, confession may be a necessary but insufficient means. God’s mercy is so much bigger, and the healing He wants to bring about is so much deeper than merely a clean slate or another try. If you find that you’re constantly coming back with the same falls into sin, God’s mercy is also waiting for you outside the confessional, not to replace the sacrament, but to strengthen and build upon the graces God has given you there, when you open up to a friend, a brother or sister in Christ, your father or mother, or whomever God has placed in your life to be another instrument of His mercy and deeper healing.

Christ’s mercy for His Apostles is the restoration of their friendship, which leads to the restoration of their zeal. On the night before the Lord was betrayed, Peter swore that he would never deny the Lord. Today, Peter’s zeal, even though it faltered, is redeemed and restored to its deeper meaning. Now it is true that Peter will not deny Him, as his impetuosity and Thomas’s doubts are redeemed in the depths of God’s mercy

The disciples were gathered behind locked doors before this encounter with the Lord out of fear of the Jewish authorities. That fear is redeemed and transformed into zeal as the Apostles receive the strength to bear witness to the Lord. The redemption of Peter’s zeal transforms the question of “what must I not do?” (deny the Lord) to, “What is the best I could do for the Lord?” For our fears to be transformed, we need that same shift in perspective: “What could I offer to Him?”

This is the question that has inspired our dedication to such beautiful celebrations of the Lord’s Paschal Triduum. What is the best we could offer Him? What works of art, what beautiful music, what elaborate ceremonies, what acts of devotion are the best we could offer to the One who has done so much for us, who is so great and worthy of all glory? What would most fit the dignity of the unbloody re-presentation of His sacrifice? And what would cultivate the taste that “sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices,” in the words of the Paschal proclamation at the Easter Vigil.

The world is afraid of your zeal, especially when it comes from young men, but really from any believer. It’s okay to be a Christian, but “everything in moderation,” the world tells us. The zeal of youth, the zeal that the Lord in His mercy gives to His Apostles, asks, “What is the greatest thing we could do for the Lord? What is the best we could offer Him?” We offer the Lord the very best we can in the Sacred Liturgy as a model of how we should offer ourselves to Him. What is the best I could give of myself?

Touch the place of the wounds. They are the place of victory. On the Paschal candle, the Lord’s blood flows from His pierced side into the chalice of salvation, which we offer back to His Father. Fearing not to touch the wounds, to come truly into the light, our friendship with the Lord is restored, and our lives can also become a solemn offering to the Father. Where is the place where the Lord wants you to probe deeper, so that you can become the very best offering you could give to the Lord?

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope

II Sunday of Easter, A.D. MMXXVI