Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Good morning. Today we celebrate the second Sunday of Easter, also known as the Sunday of Divine Mercy.

The Opening Prayer God of everlasting mercy, who, in the very recurrence of the Paschal feast, kindle the faith of the people you have made your own increase. We pray the grace you have bestowed that all may grasp and rightly understand in what font they have been washed, by whose spirit they have been reborn, by whose blood they have been redeemed. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. A Reading from the Acts of the apostles, 5th chapter 12 to the 16th verse many signs and wonders were done among the people at the hands of the apostles. They were all together at Solomon’s portico.

None of the others dared to join them, but the people esteemed them yet more than ever believers in the Lord. Great numbers of men and women were added to them thus they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them. A large number of people from the towns in the vicinity of Jerusalem also gathered, bringing the sick and those disturbed by unclean spirits, and they were all cured. The Word of the Lord Responsorial Psalm Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good his love is everlasting. A reading from the Book of Revelation, first chapter, ninth through the eleventh verse, and twelve through the nineteenth verse. I John, your brother, who share with you the distress, the kingdom, and the endurance we have in Jesus found himself in the island of Patmos because I proclaimed God’s word and gave testimony to Jesus.

I was caught up in a spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet, which said, write on a scroll what you see. I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and when I turned I saw seven gold lampstands in the midst of the lampstands, one like the Son of Man, wearing an ankle Length robe with a gold sash around his chest. When I caught sight of him, I fell down at his feet as though dead. He touched me with his right hand and said, do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever.

I hold the keys to death and the netherworld. Write down, therefore, what you have seen, what is happening, and what will happen afterwards. The word of the Lord. Hallelujah. Believe in me, Thomas, because you have seen me, says the Lord. Blessed are they who have not seen me but still believe.

Gospel for this Sunday is taken from St. John 20th chapter 1931 on the evening of the 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. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven. Them whose sins you retain are retained. Thomas, called Didymus, one of the 12, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples said to him, we have seen the Lord. But he said to them, unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.

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. And he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands. Bring your hand and put it into my side and do not be unbelieving, but believe. Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, have you come to believe because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen me and have believed. Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name. Gospel of the Lord the focus of this first Sunday after Easter is divine mercy. Another word for that is love. A more appropriate word for my words that I want you to listen to is that these gifts that redemption won for us are somehow given to us through a mystery of God’s presence.

Within us. I want you to think of mercy as unmerited love in the form of God’s presence in you. Imperfect, sinful, struggling, trying. That’s the mystery. Every year we go through the Paschal mystery, and there’s the three things that stand out so powerfully that the Eucharist establishing this mysterious ritual that is the heart. I think, of what it means to be a Catholic.

We have this unique way of understanding the Lord’s Supper that is different than other Christian denominations. Not all of them. They’re not all different, but most are. And we give it an amazing amount of power and strength and attention, called the real presence of Jesus in this host, in this wine, this nourishing food, this mysterious, forgiving drink. It separates. I won’t say separates, but it unifies what sin tries to separate.

So then we focus on his death. And the most amazing response he has to the whole thing was it comes to an end. There’s this overwhelming sense that he’s saying, look, I don’t know what to do other than to say, father, just don’t hold any of this against any of these people. Forgive them. Forgive them. Don’t let this act they’re doing separate them from me.

And then he rises. When he rises, it’s not just that he’s alive again, but it’s the promise he makes while he’s alive again. And that is, I am going to live inside of you, as real as you see me right now after my death. Walking, talking, touching you, talking to you. It’s going to happen to you, inside of you. That’s the mystery.

And that’s what this ritual called Eucharist is all about, making this reality present. And the most interesting thing about this reality that is present, it is definitely something that changes our life. But more importantly, it is something that when it becomes part of us, we become instruments of changing other people’s lives. I love that thought. You’ve heard me say it over and over again that the real work that God has chosen to do is not directly between himself and each individual, but rather he works with each individual so that we can work with each other. The real healing, the real transformation, the process of evolution and coming further and further into the truth is witnessed by people who are filled with God, rather than God directly appearing to people one after another, because it would make no sense for him to appear to us if he’s in us.

And it’s interesting that the God in us is, yes, for us, but it’s also for everyone around us. And when the God is in someone else that God is there for us. And so it’s almost like he makes each of us the healer for the other, instead of directly healing us, if that makes sense. But let’s go back to this set of readings, because they’re very, very rich. The first image I want you to feel from this first reading is that this thing that happened at the death of Jesus and his resurrection and his final ascension had this profound effect on these followers, these believers. And the effects were always signs and wonders, signs and wonders.

In fact, when you think about the Scriptures and the way they’re written and how we’re asked to believe in this presence of a divine essence inside of us, the way we’re asked to trust in it is part of the way in which it manifests itself. It has to be believed in. This is a. This presence of this God inside of you and inside of me. The Paschal mystery makes it so clear. This is not something you earn or you work for.

Like the Old Testament seemed to encourage us in a world that was binary, a world that had both divine in it, and then it was kind of at odds with the material world, the sinful world. And in this kind of split that was there, we were always struggling against the negative forces around us called sin. And we would. We kept working at it and we kept failing at it, but it seemed always it was our task to do something right, to please God so that God would come to us. And it’s still in us. We still have some quality, some.

I don’t know if I call it a quality, a human part of our nature that feels a little unworthy of a God to come into us when we’re not purified, not clean. And that’s the shadow of religion, the shadow of the Old Testament. It’s the shadow of a lot of religions still today. This dichotomy between God and the material world, as if they don’t blend together, they blend perfectly together. When I’m talking about the natural world, I’m not talking about a sinful, destructive force. I’m really talking about.

About the humanity that he has given to you and me. Humanity is not in opposition to divinity. They’re made for each other. They’re different, but they’re so complimentary that it’s almost impossible to think of one being what it is without the other. I’m not saying God needs our humanity to be God. No.

But to do the work that he wants to do in the plan that he set up. I’m not saying he’s limited to anything other than what he chooses, what he plans. But it seems to me that God has decided that he wants to use you and me to be able to accomplish his work in the world. And as we are used, the more we are used, the more we become more integrated in this mysterious connection between divinity and humanity. You can’t be fully human without divinity. Divinity won’t be fully effective in the plan that he has made it to follow without humanity.

Amazing. So we have signs and wonders, Signs and wonders. And when you think about that, you see, all right, what is different about humanity when divinity enters into it? Well, look at that story. I mean, these men were at one point in their life completely disbelieving. Anything that they couldn’t understand, they couldn’t grasp fully even what Jesus was teaching.

It was too radically different than the way they were trained. And then something happened, not slowly, not organically, like, okay, we’ll ponder this and we’ll work on this, and we’ll work on our discipline, and we’ll try to get better and better. Then eventually we get to be really, really amazingly like. Like Christ. And no, they became like Christ instantly. And they were doing the same thing that he was doing when he walked the earth.

They were using these. They were effecting change in people just by their presence. Not by a long series of teachings, but by their presence. They were doing what Jesus was doing with his presence when he was in the world. So it’s clear. You’re seeing this miracle of what I would call incarnation, divinity in humanity.

And we still have such a hard time believing it. He actually dwells in me. But that’s the story. That’s the ritual we go through. When we receive him in Eucharist, we receive his presence. And when that presence is in us, it’s his grace, we call it.

And that grace then does the work. And we are the carrier of the work. And without our acceptance of it, our belief in it, because it’s a gift, it can’t be earned. But if we accept it and believe in it, then that’s our work part. That’s what we do. I will be used by you.

I will. In the second reading, we have this strong statement of John the Evangelist having this vision of Jesus standing right there with him. And he’s saying, I was dead, but now I’m alive, and now I’m in you. So John had this sense of this vision from this vision of God really saying, I was dead. I’m now alive, but I’m alive in you and your work. He’s meditating on his work to teach and to preach.

And it’s like this was a vision he had that showed John once again that this miracle that he’s preaching and teaching is not like the Old Testament, where it’s about disciplining our will and overcoming our weaknesses and then becoming pure and good enough for God to come into us. No, it’s believing he comes into us exactly as we are. So you can see how important belief is, trusting in not the reality of this alone, but that it happens to anybody that chooses to allow it to happen to them. This is not some kind of super gift that’s given to holy people. I know the Vatican Council had such a strong thing to say about holiness. It wasn’t something that one earned through a very strict, rigid set of rules and laws and went through a life of renunciation that somehow connects to a world.

That view, that is dichotomy. It’s binary. It’s like, well, there’s the bad world and the good world. There’s the material world. It’s all bad. The spiritual world is all good.

So the two don’t really mix together. So if you give up like they do in a monastery, they go there to be holy, and they give up marriage and they give up money, and those are two strong drives that can get people in trouble in terms of their selfish nature. I mean, I’m not saying that’s all wrong or all bad in any way, shape, or form, but if you take it too much like that’s the only way you become holy, then these stories don’t make any sense. I mean, Thomas, who doubted for so long, he was going around miraculously healing people, changing their lives by presence how? I mean, when you think about it, when we do believe in this, and this is, I think, the thing, the genius of Christianity, when you believe in the miracle of God’s presence in you and you carry that to other people and your presence brings it to them. Just like when people walk up and receive the Eucharist.

I mean, it’s like, I receive this mystery. I believe in this mystery, and then it. It takes root in us again. And I don’t. It’s not like it wasn’t there before, but somehow, mysteriously, it’s strengthened. But it would only work if you understand that that is given to you not to make you holy, but to carry that presence to the people around you, to be Eucharist to people.

That’s the beauty of this sacrament of God’s presence. I mean, you receive it so you can Give it to other people. And yet you see the classic image of people in a Catholic church. They’re all going to communion very devoutly. And then they get in the parking lot and they start screaming, yelling at each other. And back to the usual.

And the anger and the frustration we have in a parking lot is human. It’s our humanity. It’s okay in a way. But that doesn’t identify us. That doesn’t say, then I’m a non believer, therefore a non communicator of the grace of God that’s been given to me to be given to someone else. It’s mostly we just don’t realize it.

We don’t understand the full scope of this incredible eucharistic miracle, this miracle of God’s presence, this way in which ritual enhances it, the way it’s constantly calling us to believe in it. And the wonderful thing about this, when you think about it, think how it frees you from any kind of egocentric reaction to your ability to be able to do things for people. It’s not you. Yeah, it’s you. But it’s not just you. I mean, to separate yourself from the presence of God is as silly as simply saying, I can work without my body.

I can work without my spirit. Just my body. The two are absolutely connected. What we say to each other, how we act around each other is one thing. Who we are around each other is everything. People don’t love how we look or how the lover looks.

They love something about them that is their essence. And their essence, when it’s filled with divinity, is not otherworldly. It is just richer and more complete and more honest, authentic, real and beautiful. The mystery of God working through you, through me, being the source of healing and health and wholeness. It’s almost too easy. It’s almost too good to be true.

But it is true and it does work. And it is the God’s. It is God’s plan. And all it takes is belief. You know, strong conviction, belief. So my prayer for you now is just that.

Anything that blocks you from that surrender, that in a way, loss of control. Because you’re not the one that makes people around you better. You’re an instrument that God uses to. For him to make them better. That it’s not easy. I like to make things better and control things and all that, like I’m sure you do.

But that’s not. It’s not where it is. It’s not where the power is. So I just pray God will free us from any of that excessive self fullness if that’s the word, and bring us into the selflessness of his presence. Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show.

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Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright2024.