Octave Day: Let us Rejoice!
Posted On April 8, 2009
A couple of years ago I emailed a Mercy Sunday reflection to a few friends, and I’d like to share it with you now.
Mercy Sunday! “This is the day the Lord has made.” Today is the day of days, the octave day of Easter, the last and greatest day of that greatest of all feasts. It is known as Mercy Sunday because it celebrates the unconditional love that God has for you and me and his desire to fill us with unimaginable peace and joy.
I love the gospel story of the first Easter Sunday and its octave day (Jn 20:19-29). All of Christ’s closest friends and followers were gathered together in the room where He had celebrated the passover meal (Last Supper) with them. They were confused, disappointed, depressed and scared to death, afraid that they too might be arrested and put to death. They had all had such great expectations for Christ, and probably for themselves. Like us, each of them had perhaps imagined wonderful, detailed scripts for how this amazing adventure was going to turn out. Christ had represented their deepest hopes, but all that had changed in the garden, in the court of the high priest, in the praetorium of Pilate, and on that awful hill of Calvary where most of them had not even dared to show themselves.
After the torture and execution of Christ, all seemed lost. So they withdrew into the upper room, locked the doors, and hid there together, tormented with confusion, hopelessness, and fear.
And suddenly He was there with them. (In our fear we can try to lock Him out, but He is always with us.) The first word He spoke was “Shalom,” which is usually translated as “Peace.” But “Shalom” is not just peace. It is when we lack nothing we need for complete well being. It means total fulfillment, complete health in mind, body, and spirit. Christ then showed them the wounds in His resurrected body and breathed upon them, inviting them to receive His Spirit. Thomas wasn’t there that first Easter Sunday. He missed the miracle of the locked doors, missed the proof of Christ’s resurrection, missed the great bestowal of peace and the invitation to receive Christ’s Spirit. His reaction was denial, doubt, and disbelief. Unless he could see the nail holes in Christ’s hands and put his hand into the wound made by the centurion’s spear, he would not believe.
Why? I think he was afraid to believe because he wanted so desperately to believe, to have hope again, to have meaning and direction and purpose for his life again. To believe and be disappointed again would be too hard to bear. When our desire and need are greatest, it’s easier not to hope, safer not to believe, more bearable to live with our fear than to risk further pain. He could not bring himself to trust what his friends had seen. He needed personal proof.
So, eight days later (the Octave Day), Christ shows up again. Once again the doors are locked ( How hard it is for us to really trust, even when we witness miracles!), but He is suddenly there in their midst. Again He greets them with “Shalom,” and then offers Thomas the proof he needs, inviting him to touch His wounds. What a wonderful testimony to how far God is willing to go to reveal himself to each of us, personally, when we long to see Him!
Here we are, some 2000 years later. So many scripts that haven’t worked out. So many dashed expectations. So much disappointment, confusion, and anxiety. In my fear, how many rooms have I fled into to hide? How many locked doors are there in my mind and heart? How many times have I been afraid to trust, unwilling to believe, unable to receive?
Every day, but especially today when we remember and celebrate His mercy, Christ stands before us (even in the deepest locked rooms of our being), offers us His “Shalom,” and invites us to receive His Spirit. And if we long to experience the reality of His presence and His love, He will reveal Himself to us. As the octave day of Easter, today is the perfect day to begin living a resurrected life. Today, above all days, is the day to ask for miracles in our lives and the lives of those we love. Today the floodgates of His mercy are open and He wants to squander unimaginable graces upon us. Today is the day to let go of all fear, daring to ask God to break through all the locked doors, heal all the wounds, and breathe His Spirit into our hearts. Today is the day to say the biggest yes we can to God and receive His “Shalom.”
The readings prescribed for today echo this so strongly! In The Liturgy of the Hours (known as The Divine Office), the first reading is from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians (3:1-17), in which he stresses that through Christ’s death and resurrection we are called and empowered to put our old self to death and to put on a new self, allowing God to recreate us in His image. The second reading is from a Mercy Sunday sermon by St. Augustine. “This is the octave day of your new birth,” he explains, emphasizing that today we are called to “walk in newness of life.” Christ, he explains, “has stored up abundant happiness, which He will reveal to those who hope in Him.”
So today, let’s really celebrate His mercy. Let’s put everything and everyone we love into His hands, letting go of all fear, and trusting that he will cleanse and heal and restore us in all our needs. Let’s give Him our past, our present, and our future and ask Him to bring it all to good. Let’s invite Him into every aspect of our lives, give Him permission to transform it, and really open ourselves to receive all that He wants to give us.
One of the songs that was sung at Mass today summarizes it well: “The peace of the Lord is given to you. Receive it in your heart.”
May your day be filled with blessings!