26 April 2025 – Divine Mercy Sunday (Sunset Mass)

by Fr Fabian Dicom

My dear brothers and sisters, today we stand with Thomas, not in judgment but in deep solidarity. Because in many ways, his story is our story. We too have been wounded by life, confused by laws and tempted to close our hearts. But like Thomas, we are also called to make that powerful leap of faith.

My Lord and my God.

Now this profession, short, raw, complete. It is not a side note. It is the climax of John’s Gospel. Everything, every sign, every encounter, every word has led here. And in this one moment, the Gospel proper concludes with Thomas, the once skeptical disciple, becoming the first to fully proclaim the divinity and lordship of the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ.

But this moment is not just about Thomas. It is about us, as I said.

Jesus response, “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.” opens the door wide for every believer across time and place. For the original readers, the listeners of John’s Gospel and for us today, this is the direct and tender affirmation.

You are part of the story. You belong to that communion. You are blessed.

Happy are you who believe was meant for us.

And this is not just a spiritual sentiment. This is the birth of a new kind of community, a church borne not from fear but from faith. Not from appearances but from encounter. Not from control but from mercy.

And this is precisely what the First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles reveals. The early church, animated by the Risen Christ, becomes a healing community. Through their hands, the sick were cured. The shadow of Peter falls like a blessing. People bring their pain to the community and the community does not recoil.

The community receives.
The community restores.
The community resurrects.

This is not magic. This is resurrected life made visible. A church that believes “My Lord and my God.” And continues to live that confession through radical compassion and tangible acts of mercy.

This is no accident that the church’s first steps are not sermons but are signs. Not structures but service when we allow Christ’s wounds to touch our own. And that is what the early community did. We too become wounded healers for others. And that is how the church began.

And in the Second Reading from the Book of Revelation, John the Evangelist, the Seer, exiled and suffering, receives a vision of hope. Christ alive and glorified, walking among 7 golden lampstands, symbols of the churches. For at that time, it refers to the 7 churches in Asia Minor. They were seen as holding up the light of God’s truth and spreading it to the darken world.

The same Christ who showed Thomas his wounds now says that to John,

“Do not be afraid. It is I, the first and the last. I am the living One. I was dead and now I am to live forever and ever.“

And this is the same Jesus who walks among us today. He does not dwell in buildings made by human hands alone.

He is present where the church dares to stand with the broken.
He is present where the community chooses mercy over judgment.
He is present where faith is proclaimed, not with pious words but with the wounded heart that still believes.
He is present where like the 7 lampstands, the church of today can hold up the light of God’s truth and spread it to a darken world.

My dear brothers and sisters, you see this profession “My Lord and my God” is not just Thomas’ line. It is mine, it is yours.

I have whispered it, but not always with clarity or confidence but often through tears. And sometimes in confusion, even in grief. I have spoken when life offered me a second chance. I remember a time in the midst of my own doubts when I reach out and I thought the book would give me all the answers. The title of the book is “We who wrestle with God.“

But that was my disposition at that time. But I did not find the answers I thought I needed. But something else stirred and I thank God for that. The quiet assurance, beyond explanation, that there is a God. That Jesus had not let go of me.

And maybe it came through prayer, or through someone’s unexpected kindness to me, or a moment I only later recognised as a gentle presence breaking through the silence.

These days when I feel the ache of loss, the loss of this beloved man Francis. And when I worry about the direction of the church, I find myself returning to his witness. And in doing so, I am reminded almost with the quiet certainty it was always about Jesus.

Francis’ humility, his courage, his tenderness, these were not just his own. They revealed Jesus Christ. Without Jesus, he could not be who he was. And he abandoned himself to Jesus Christ. And somehow when I think about this these days, from the depths the words rise up again.

And I was reflecting and praying about today’s Readings and the homily and the words came out “My Lord and my God“. Not out of habit but as an act of remembering because the Lord keeps showing up, showing up and showing up unmerited, unexpected, unwavering. And I begin to see He was always there. I just needed to show up, to notice, to be conscious of His abiding presence.

This is divine mercy. This too is divine mercy.

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday. And mercy we must remember, we must remember, it is not softness. It is strength.

Divine Mercy meets Thomas’ honesty.
Divine Mercy walks among the sick in the Acts of the Apostles that we read just now.
Divine Mercy tells the persecuted church in the Book of Revelations “Do not be afraid.”
Divine Mercy, my dear brothers and sisters, is not a devotion we recite but the way we live.

Thomas’ confession “My Lord and my God” must move our lips to our lives. It must shape how we speak to the grieving, how we include the doubting, how we listen to the marginalised, how we respond to the poor and to the earth crying out.

My dear friends, every Eucharist is an invitation to that same confession. When the body of Christ is lifted before our eyes and we whisper “My Lord and my God“, let us not say it out of habit but out of wonder. Let it be our sending forth. Let it shape the kind of church we are building – One that is credible. Not because it is perfect and it has got everything right but because it is faithful to Christ’s wounds and His peace.

This is what the world longs to see. A church that lives what it proclaims. A community that embodies Thomas’ journey from doubt to discipleship, from fear to faith, from wounds to witness.

So today, let us say it again, not just with our mouths but with our hearts, with our hands and with our lives:

My Lord and my God.

Amen.

Click below to listen to homily and watch video

Click to live-stream Mass on 26 April 2025