No revenge. Real forgiveness (Second Sunday of Easter - Sunday of Divine Mercy 2019)

In none of the encounters between the Lord and his apostles there is no a single bitter claim, there is no desire for revenge, there is not a single word of recrimination for them. The greeting of the Lord says…everything: Peace be with you! Neither does the gospel mention any apparition to Pontius Pilate, or Caiaphas, or the Roman soldiers who crowned him with thorns. In Jesus there is no desire for revenge or vindication. He appears with his glorious body and brings peace and healing to those who still believe in him. It is precisely here that we find the foundation of Christian forgiveness. It is right here where we can begin our process, sometimes long, of forgiving those with whom we have had a confrontation for whatever reason. The encounter between the Lord and his apostles was an authentic experience of forgiveness: no allusion to abandonment in the Garden of Gethsemane.  No reproach for the cowardly betrayal. No gesture of demand to repair the damage.  The apparitions mean a true amnesty in the etymological sense of this word: total forgetfulness of the offense received. We live in a society where we do not properly value forgiveness. The world and sometimes our politicians tell us that forgiveness is the virtue of the weak. However, we are not going to achieve real peace if we are not able to introduce authentic forgiveness in our lives. Forgiveness, when it is really authentic, in its apparent fragility, is much stronger than all the violence in the world. The resurrection of Jesus reveals that peace does not arise from aggression and blood, but from love and sincere forgiveness. Jesus is the most perfect example of this, and we are called to imitate him!  So, this morning [evening], second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, we could ask the Lord for something very specific: his help and grace to recover the capacity to forgive and forget, as he did during his entire life.  [And] May he give us a heart of flesh instead of the heart of stone that is the result of the hate and revenge we keep inside. My brother, my sister, in a world so full of conflicts we Christians are called to spread the miracle of forgiveness. And this miracle, let's not forget, comes from Christ crucified, whose last words we heard a few days ago: Father, forgive them because they do not know what do they do • AE