Reflection for Sunday – April 11, 2021

Readings: Acts 4: 32-35; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20: 19-31
Click here to download a PDF of this homily.
Preacher: Sr. Joan Sobala

For Him, it didn’t have to be this way,
Risen Christ that He was.

He could have left His wounds in the tomb,
Untreasured,
His blood
Staining the stone and
Burial wrappings.

But Jesus’ wounds
In hands and feet and side
Were the embodiment of
The compassion he bore for everyone.
Jesus wanted them beyond the tomb
And into His Risen life.
They would be an
Unequivocal witness to who He was.

Jesus’ breath,
Halted in death,
Was fresh, deep and sweet
On this Third Day,
His body firm,
Undeniably renewed.

Beyond this day,
Jesus wanted his holy wounds
To touch the wounds of people where they suffered
In every time and place,
As with the silent virus stalking, eroding our world.

Yes.
Jesus’ wounds stir life in us
Who are so wounded today.
His wounds make us,
Wounded as we are, clearly and undeniably
One with Him.

Jesus’ wounds are full of kinship.

Looking in the mirror or
Gazing at others of our kind,
Wounded by nature or
Perversity,
We find the Risen One gazing back at us.

Our wounds are fact and sign
Of our humanness,
A mark of our complex being,
A sign of our everlasting
Though sometimes unsteady
Connectedness with the Risen One.

His wounds and ours.
Thomas wanted to touch His wounds,
And then Thomas didn’t need to.
He found faith enough
To find Jesus’ wounds true and real,
full of the meaning he needed.
Like Thomas, we don’t have to touch
Once belief has rooted
And rerouted in us.

Easter doesn’t mean that
Jesus’ wounds are gone.

Easter means that
we do not carry our wounds in vain.

How faultlessly wise of Jesus
Not to reject his wounds,
For they throb with the truth
Of all we can trust about Him
In our own fearsome, death-laden time.

In our distractedness,
We might miss seeing
The risen Christ without them.

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Sr. Joan Sobala, SSJ

Sister of St. Joseph Joan Sobala is currently working on a variety of spirituality and leadership development projects for the Sisters of St. Joseph. Including a weekly blog, which can be found at ssjrochester.org. Sr. Joan is a retired pastoral administrator for the Diocese of Rochester.

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