April 12, 2026
Second Sunday of Easter (or Sunday of Divine Mercy)
Lectionary: 43
First Reading: Acts 2:42-47
They devoted themselves
to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life,
to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.
Awe came upon everyone,
and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.
All who believed were together and had all things in common;
they would sell their property and possessions
and divide them among all according to each one’s need.
Every day they devoted themselves
to meeting together in the temple area
and to breaking bread in their homes.
They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart,
praising God and enjoying favor with all the people.
And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24
R. (1) Give thanks to the LORD for he is good, his love is everlasting.
Let the house of Israel say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
Let the house of Aaron say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
Let those who fear the LORD say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
R. Give thanks to the LORD for he is good, his love is everlasting.
I was hard pressed and was falling,
but the LORD helped me.
My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
The joyful shout of victory
in the tents of the just:
R. Give thanks to the LORD for he is good, his love is everlasting.
The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
By the LORD has this been done;
it is wonderful in our eyes.
This is the day the LORD has made;
let us be glad and rejoice in it.
R. Give thanks to the LORD for he is good, his love is everlasting.
Second Reading: 1 Pt 1:3-9
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,
kept in heaven for you
who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith,
to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time.
In this you rejoice, although now for a little while
you may have to suffer through various trials,
so that the genuineness of your faith,
more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire,
may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor
at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Although you have not seen him you love him;
even though you do not see him now yet believe in him,
you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,
as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Alleluia: John 20:29
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
You believe in me, Thomas, because you have seen me, says the Lord;
blessed are they who have not seen me, but still believe!
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel: John 20:19-31
On the evening of that 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.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
But he said to them,
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nailmarks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
Now 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.”
Then he said to Thomas, “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.”
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 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.
Reflection
The Second Sunday of Easter is Divine Mercy Sunday.
Wait a minute! Why do we have a separate celebration for Divine Mercy Sunday? Isn’t Good Friday the day of divine mercy? Is there any other day that compares to what Jesus did on Good Friday insofar as mercy is concerned?
Also, aren’t all masses offered throughout the world, in all days of the year, liturgies which allow us to ENTER into the perpetual heavenly liturgy which, among other things, which makes the saving work of our Lord Jesus eternally present before God and atones for all the sins of the world? In other words, isn’t it that all masses are thanksgiving celebrations of the divine mercy of God?
To better understand the impact of these questions and what they imply, it would be best to take a dive into what Good Friday and Easter brought about and what it is that really resulted when our Lord Jesus rose from death as He promised.
First, kindly note that we start the novena of the Divine Mercy on Good Friday because, and rightfully so, it is the day of absolute goodness and mercy: When the only Good in this world freely gives up His life just to ransom and save a slave to sin (which is man), that is undoubtedly, unequivocal and unmistakably the highest good mankind has ever witnessed. Good Friday is “good” because the Good offered His life in exchange for our lives by hanging on the Cross.
Second, when Jesus rose from death, this wasn’t a resuscitation to life of a corpse by the power our Lord, like what happened to St. Lazarus (John 11). This was no less than marriage union of the temporal order into the divine, because now God lives with his people (see. Rev 21:3). Jesus truly bridged the divide between earth and heaven in His very person because He proved that there is indeed life after death, not just any other life but eternal life or the very life of God. By rising from death, Christ defeated death, the last and greatest hindrance to life eternal. Jesus is the very proof because He indeed is the Way, the Truth and the Life. “Christ is the firstborn of many brethren” (Rom 8:29). Jesus took preeminence in His resurrection into a new life by ascending into heaven with His glorified body to open the gates of the Kingdom of the Heaven and lead the brethren who inherited life everlasting.
Third, the Mass that we celebrate daily throughout all the Churches in the world is our worship to God, and our thanksgiving for His salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who, by His passion, death and resurrection, complies with the everlasting command to perform the Passover in the new Passover of the Lord’s Supper. It is also the Festival of the Unleavened Bread because our Lord identifies himself as the Bread of Life, which needs to be blessed, broken and eaten for eternal life. Jesus’ body and blood, presented as bread and wine in the Eucharist, is our expiation and Atonement, because He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Gospel: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” (John 20:29)
To believe is to see! To accurately put it: To believe allows us to see. More accurately put: To believe allows us to see with the ‘eyes of faith’. To believe requires faith and faith comes from the grace of God with one indispensable element – our DECISION to accept God’s will for us. Obviously, St. Thomas the Apostle decided wrongly. If he probably prayed before doubting, he could have been graced with the power to believe in our Lord’s resurrection without the Lord showing himself to him with His nail marks and all.
There is a direct relationship between believing in God and God’s mercy, on the one hand, and Jesus and his passion, death and resurrection, on the other. On its face, this statement looks simple but there’s more than meets the eye. In other words, the mercy of God is all about believing in the resurrection of Jesus. Those who do not doubt that Jesus is the Messiah – the one who died for our sins and save mankind for the eternal sonship that awaits all of us in heaven, including living out our baptismal vows, they are truly children of the resurrection or children of the perpetual Easter.
Mind you, during the time of Lord on earth, there were those who believed in God but didn’t believe in life after death. There were also those who believed in God but didn’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Today, the mutations of these have been many and these are heresies that have merely been recycled from antiquity. They have all been convincingly rebutted by the Church because the fullness of the faith is reposed upon her.
In today’s Gospel, St. Thomas, who wasn’t present in the Cenacle Room on Easter night, was being told by his brother Apostles that they have already seen the resurrected Lord because He appeared to them a week ago.
St. Thomas, in his doubt, sets aside the witness of his brothers, asks for physical evidence and demands to see the wounds of Jesus for him to believe in the resurrection and that He is truly risen. Imagine that! Like a faithful Jew, he believes in God. He also believes that Jesus is from heaven by the works and signs performed by our Lord, and some of them were performed before his very eyes, especially raising Lazarus to life. As an Apostle, Thomas had the privilege to be with the Jesus up close and personal. Now, he does not even believe that Jesus has the power to rise from death as He himself promised.
If St. Thomas, an Apostle, failed in his faith because he didn’t initially believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and didn’t believe the declaration of his brothers that they have seen the Lord (and he apparently forgot what Jesus said about his passion and resurrection), how much failure would it be for us who are ordinary mortals and who live in this neo-pagan world of secularism, materialism and hedonism (among others)? If St. Thomas failed, we all can easily fail.
There is that component in faith which expects us to believe in things even in the absence of physical proof. Otherwise, physical proof would even serve to negate or hinder our belief and faith. In Hebrews 11:1, faith is defined as follows: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen“.
In other words, to believe in God requires his grace through the Holy Spirit. God’s grace will always be sufficient for hearts and souls to want to draw closer to him. But it will always require our accent and decision to believe in God and everything that the Church proposes for our faith. That is why we are “a” universal and “the” universal Church. There are those who believe in God but don’t believe that Jesus is God. A lot of people believe that Jesus is God but don’t believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. Grace alone may be sufficient for us to tackle matters of faith but it still needs our assent to and about the faith for faith to really matter in our lives and create an impact in this world which Christ ordered to be evangelized and make disciples of all nations.
St. Thomas had all the “evidence and tools” before him to just believe anything and everything about Jesus rising from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection is at the very core of our faith. But at that moment requiring him to take that leap of faith, he doubted and he was admonished for it by the Lord: “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
Let’s always pray that Jesus doesn’t have to show himself to us with a rebuke saying that His grace is more than sufficient for our faith and for us to stop doubting Him.
The Eucharist: “Blessed are those who see bread but believe that when consecrated, see the real presence of Jesus and blessed are those who know that in the Eucharist, Jesus is really present—body, blood, soul and divinity.”
Next week, the Third Sunday of Easter, the Gospel will be the Road to Emmaus episode from St. Luke. The story goes something like this: Towards dusk, our resurrected and unrecognizable Lord Jesus, walks towards Emmaus with St. Clopas and another fellow who was unnamed. Since nighttime was upon them, the typical Middle-Eastern hospitality kicked-in for them to invite Jesus into their homes, who at this point, was still unrecognized. Our Lord was prodded by the two men to remain and break bread with them. Fast-forward to dinner – “…while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him but he vanished from their sight” (Luke 24:30-31).
St. Clopas and friend recognized Jesus only in the breaking of the bread. Therefore, when Jesus vanished from their very eyes during the meal, our Lord wasn’t doing it for show. He wanted us to believe that he is present with us in the Eucharist; he makes himself sacramentally present to us in the Eucharist and this even connects with his promise that he will be with us until the end of time (Matt 28:20).
Going back to today’s Gospel, St. Thomas is asking for empirical proof before he believes in the resurrected Jesus. However, to be with Jesus requires a lot of faith because He is absent from our physical eyes. But like the incident at the Road to Emmaus, we too are being asked to just to take a giant leap of faith and not doubt like St. Thomas.
Our physical eyes might not see Jesus because he already ascended to heaven. But there is such a thing called ‘eyes of faith’ and this allows us to see what can’t be seen by human eyes. Through baptism, and reinforced by confirmation, we are given grace to see with the eyes of faith the deepest mysteries of God and His Bride the Catholic Church, IF ONLY WE BELIEVE. Our eyes of faith, together with tradition and the magisterium, allow us to see that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist and those who believe are truly blessed because they didn’t require physical and empirical evidence to prove it, unlike St. Thomas. Besides, our faith has enough mysteries that simply can’t be explained. That is why faith is an integral part for man to be able to just trust and believe in God.
Jesus not only rose from the dead like he said He would or ascended into heaven just to leave us orphans or play hide-and-go-seek. He didn’t leave us just to confuse our focus on Him because He is in the Eucharist and He makes himself present to us in a most unique and special way. Jesus is indeed Immanuel – God with us!
Conclusion
To believe is to see! It can’t be the other way around. Christianity DOES NOT TEACH ‘to see is to believe. If it did, there will be no need for faith. To have faith is to see and to have faith is a matter of grace because one can’t have faith without the power of the Holy Spirit!
To simply believe that there is a God is a matter of grace and may be a good place to start with our journey of faith. But it is not enough for spiritual growth. We need to increase in our faith through daily conversion into the image of Jesus and this comes with the reception of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.
To believe in God is already a matter of grace. To have faith in God, to believe in God and in the one He sent is already a cause for so much rejoicing in our lives because we can count ourselves as justified and saved: “God our Savior, desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1Timothy 2:3-4)
Saint Peter could not have said it any better in our Second Reading:
“In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:6-9)
The Church specifically designated the Second Sunday of Easter to celebrate God’s mercy because everything in this world is about God’s mercy. In the same way, all the masses being offered and celebrated every hour of the day, all over the world is about God’s mercy. Jesus has put so much emphasis on his mercy, as that one attribute of his salvation that He even appeared to St. Faustina Kowalska and asked that the devotion to His divine mercy be perpetuated at the hour of great mercy, 3:00 PM every day. Jesus, King of mercy, we trust in you!
A blessed Divine Mercy Sunday to all.
– Gospel Reflection by Kuya Rommel Cecilio of SLRP Bible Apostolate Ministry