Dear Christ the King Family,
Today, we celebrate the final day in the Octave of Easter. Since the year 2000, this day has been honored as Divine Mercy Sunday. You will notice the Divine Mercy image of Jesus displayed in our Sanctuary at all the Masses this weekend—an image originally painted to resemble the visions of our Lord received by the Polish mystic, Sr. Maria Faustina Kowalska in the 1930’s. Two beams of light—one a pale blue and the other a crimson red—emanate from Jesus’s side. They recall the water and blood that poured forth from His flesh on the cross when he was pierced by the soldier’s lance, and this gushing forth was in turn a sign of the two-fold gift of Baptism and the Eucharist that the Crucified and Risen Lord has given to our Church. The image also shows the wounds in Jesus’s hands and feet from the nails that had pinned him to the cross, and it bears the inscription, “Jesus, I trust in you.”
These are the same wounds that Jesus showed to the apostles when he appeared to them after his rising from the dead. They were the same wounds in which Jesus commanded Thomas to place his own hand, so that after having doubted the resurrection, he might see, touch, and believe, and so learn to trust in Jesus. God’s mercy has been delivered to us in these very wounds of Jesus. And though we cannot touch the wounds in Jesus’ resurrected body in the same way that Thomas did, the Sacraments of the Church—which are the out-pouring of Divine love from the wounds of Jesus—grant us real physical contact with the Lord Jesus. They allow us to see, to touch, to taste His Divine presence with us and in us, and they help to overcome our unbelief.
This weekend always carries special importance for the Congregation of Holy Cross in the U.S., because it is always on the Saturday after Easter that we celebrate the priestly Ordination of our finally professed members in the transitional deaconate. On Saturday, April 11, we witnessed the ordination of two new priests, Fr. Thomas (T.J.) Groden and Fr. Christopher Mulholland. Just as St. Thomas and the rest of the apostles, they have been on a journey of deepening in their relationship with the Lord and growing in faith, hope and love—all to prepare them for their mission of sharing the Divine mercy and love with the world through the Sacraments and the preaching of the Gospel. Please join our Holy Cross community in giving thanks to God for the way He has led Fr. T.J. and Fr. Chris to commit their lives to the priesthood this weekend. May God’s mercy be made known to all who are touched by their priestly ministry!
Peace in Christ,
Fr Cameron Cortens, C.S.C.
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