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DIVINE MERCY
SUNDAY: SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER
April 15, 2007
Today we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. Written underneath the Divine Mercy Image of Jesus is the exclamation "Jesus, I Trust in You!" Listen to this story of trusting in Jesus.
During World War I Eddie Rickenbacker served in the Air Force and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery. During World War II he served as special representative to the Secretary of War.
One day during World War II, he was on an official mission when his plane and its crew of seven went down somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. When the newspapers reported the story, tens of thousands of Americans prayed for their safety. Mayor Laguardia of New York City asked the entire city to unite in prayer. Weeks passed with no sign of anyone. Meanwhile a remarkable story was unfolding in the Pacific. The plane's entire crew survived a crash landing and were adrift, with little food or water, in rubber life rafts.
It turned out that one member of the crew, Lt. James Whittaker, was an atheist. Later, Whittaker described the experience in a best-selling book. He said that just as they were preparing to crash land in the ocean, he became annoyed and angry when the plane's navigator began to pray.
After they survived the crash landing, they inflated the life rafts and tied them together with long ropes. On the fourth day they were in dire need for food and water, so they pulled the rafts together for a prayer service. Capt. Cherry began with the Lord's Prayer and followed that with a reading from his pocket Bible that included the words, "Do not be worried about the food and drink you need to stay alive." Whittaker said to himself skeptically, "I'll believe that when I see the food and drink."
On the sixth day they were all growing weak from hunger and thirst. That evening Whittaker joined in the prayers very passively. Then Capt. Cherry fired off a flare, hoping a ship or plane would see it; but the flare charge was faulty and the ball of fire fell back among the rafts. As it did, it attracted a school of fish. In their excitement, two fair-sized fish leaped into one of the rafts.
The next day Lt. Whittaker said he joined in the prayer service wholeheartedly. That prayer service ended with a tremendous rainstorm. The men drank all the water they could. Then they filled their mouths with water and blew it into the air space of their life jackets for future use.
On the ninth day Capt. Cherry caught a tiny two-foot shark on an empty hook. A few days later, something even more amazing happened. A seagull landed on Rickenbacker’s head! He caught it, divided it among the crew, and used parts of it for fish bait.
By the 13th day all men were suffering from massive skin ulcers and were also showing signs of delirium. On the 18th day they cut the ropes of the rafts, hoping this would increase the possibility of being seen by planes. On the 21st day they spotted land. Lt. Whittaker manned the oars and reached land seven hours later.
In his book, We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing, he wrote: "As soon as we got to shore, we knelt down and gave thanks to God." Whittaker ended his account, saying: "I have told this story as often as I could…the story of the rafts and how during those blazing days out there on the ocean I found my God." And so it happened that the man who started out as an unbeliever became the most ardent believer of all!
The similarity between the story of Lt. Whittaker and Thomas the Apostle in today's Gospel is obvious.
Both began by doubting. Both became believers. Both responded to their gift of faith by going forth and telling the Good News to others.
Like Thomas the Apostle, Lt. Whittaker was the only doubter of the group. Yet, he was the one God chose to tell the story of God’s goodness to the group. And so, like Thomas, he became God’s special witness, just as Thomas was. There’s a lesson here for all of us!
Many of us have gone through periods of doubting. We have asked, "Is God listening to my prayers? Has God forgotten all about me?" We may even have left the Church for a period of time. Whatever the case, however, Jesus did not desert us. He reached out to us…as he did to Thomas the Apostle and Lt. Whittaker.
Like Thomas and Lt. Whitaker, we are to say "Jesus, I Trust in You!" Like Thomas and Lt. Whittaker, we are to share our renewed gift of faith with others. God doesn’t want us to lock our faith away in our hearts. He wants us to share it, especially with those who are inactive in their faith. How we do this is up to us. But do it we must, whether it be by prayer, by example, or by sharing our material blessings with the needy. We must do it! We must trust in Jesus!
This is the message of today's Gospel. We are not just called to believe in Jesus and leave it at that! We are called to become what God created us to be! Jesus tells us that we are to be merciful as the Father is merciful! Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy!
Let us pray today in thanksgiving for God’s Divine Mercy, that God will remove any doubt from our minds, and that our faith will continue to grow so we, too, can truthfully proclaim: "Jesus, I Trust in You!"