Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality (CACS)'s Podcast
The Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality (CACS) is a centre for research and formation that promotes spiritual formation and renewal, drawing on the rich resources of the venerable Carmelite tradition.
It is an apostolate of the Anglo-Irish Province of the Discalced Carmelites, based at the Carmelite Priory at Boars Hill, Oxford, England.
OUR MISSION
CACS strives to achieve its mission through structured study and formation programmes in spirituality from the Carmelite perspective, especially Prayer and Spiritual Direction. At the Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality, you are welcome to enter into the silence where God’s voice is heard in prayer, word and sacrament, inviting you to journey ever more deeply into a place of growth and wholeness. Our goal is to bring people to experience a life-transforming friendship with God through a lived experience of Carmelite spirituality that is authentic to its biblical roots.
Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality (CACS)'s Podcast
Divine Mercy Sunday
DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY
Word & Wisdom is a weekly reflection on the Sunday’s scriptures and the wisdom of the Carmelite tradition. It promises to offer you real spiritual food to sustain you on the journey.
This Word and Wisdom Podcast is brought to you by the Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality, Oxford (carmelite.uk.net).
To receive audio and written copies, subscribe by emailing podcasts@cacs.org.uk
To connect with our Living Prayer Podcast on Youtube, kindly click: https://www.youtube.com/@CACSOxford
Today, we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday, which invites us to reflect deeply on the boundless mercy of God, flowing from the heart of the risen Lord. Mercy is the singular monument of God's very nature as infinitely loving and just, in sustaining and sanctifying his people. Saint John of the Cross captures this truth, for said he, When individuals love and do good to others, they love and do good to them in the measure of their own nature and properties.
Rightly so, since God is omnipotent, he omnipotently loves and does good to you. Since he is infinitely merciful, mild, and clement, you feel his mercy, mildness, and clemency. This nature is revealed in the unfathomable mercy of Jesus, which makes possible the support necessary for growth and maturation into our truest selves.
In today's first reading, we witness the early church growing in faith and numbers, through the powerful works of the apostles by the authority given to them by Christ. Our second reading from the book of Revelation reminds us of Christ's ultimate victory over sin and death. Despite present trials, Christ has triumphed, and so will his church.
In our gospel reading, we perceive once more, John's singular purpose for writing his gospel account, namely, that we may believe and come to eternal life. To this effect, even after his resurrection, Christ still appears to his disciples, who, though scandalised by the cross and unsure of the resurrection, were significantly wounded through doubts, failures, denials, and fears and in need of some support and accompaniment in their trial of faith. Recognising our common brokenness is essential to solidarity and worship, through a shared hope and openness to life.
Christ's gesture of showing his wounds indicates his identification with our fragility and humanity, with the possibility of being misrepresented and shows us how to let God's grace through the cracks and differences. The breathing of the Spirit brings a fresh perspective and peace, which conquers the culture of enmity, manifest in various forms of non-commitment to a shared life, as in the case of Thomas. My Lord and my God! As much as it is a personal confession of faith is also the church's liturgical confession and worship, in the one spirit of reconciliation, where new revelations abound in union with Christ.
Pope Francis' insistence that of God's nature, he never tyres of forgiving us, we are the ones who tyre of seeking his mercy, resonates deeply, particularly with those who feel unworthy to ask or not confident to the effect of forfeiting opportunities to show mercy. By all means, the church, as a reconciled and reconciling community, cannot forget this at the source of her gift and mission. Pope Francis insisted that this is the very foundation of the church's life.
Where there is mercy, there is the face of Christ. The participatory gift of being merciful as our Father is merciful, corresponds with the post-resurrection mandate, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. It is with this divine authority that Jesus confers on his church the divine power to forgive sin in his name.
Real forgiveness is indeed divine. It is not simply forgive and forget, but forgiveness in the knowledge of our common brokenness that cannot be effaced. However, it can be an opportunity for a deeper revelation of love, solidarity, and peace between the forgiver and forgiven.
Finally, the ABC of devotion to the divine mercy invites us to ask for mercy, be merciful and confident in God's love and mercy. May we be true to these and be true harbingers of peace.