Peace and Divine Mercy, Divine Mercy Sunday (A), April 12, 2026

Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, New York
Divine Mercy Sunday
April 12, 2026
Acts 2:42-47, Ps 118, 1 Pet 1:3-9, Jn 20:19-31

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• At this time when the United States has been led into in an undeclared war with Iran, in a week after our President threatened, contrary to Just War principles and international law that he was prepared to annihilate Iranian civilization and blow up all of its power plants and energy facilities if it didn’t capitulate to his demands, after so many have been killed within Iran by the Iranian regime and many others by US and Israeli bombs, after more than 1,000 have died in Lebanon, after more attacks on Christians in Nigeria, after more suffering in Ukraine from Russian attacks on power plants such that Ukranians have no electricity and heat, Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel are somehow more compelling than they perennially are. Three times the Risen Lord Jesus says, “Shalom!” “Peace be with you!” Peace, as we know, is not the absence of war. Peace in the Jewish understanding is the fullness of every good thing. St. Augustine would call it the tranquility of order, when everything is in its proper place. Jesus, after having signed the definitive peace treaty between the human race and God through his blood on Calvary was wishing us that fullness, that order, that peace. He had said, three days earlier during the Last Supper on Holy Thursday, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (Jn 14:27). He wants us to have that peace, to dwell in that gift, and then he wants to send us out as peacemakers to share that gift with the world. Today, on Divine Mercy Sunday, he shows us how.
• But, before we get there, I want to pause on this subject of peace. Last night, the vicar on earth of the Prince of Peace, led a Rosary for Peace prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica. I want to share some of his words. He began by addressing the importance of Christians praying for peace, like we do at today’s Mass and in every Mass. Prayer, he said, is needed “in order to face this dramatic hour in history together — as humanity and alongside humanity. Prayer is not a refuge in which to hide from our responsibilities, nor an anesthetic to numb the pain provoked by so much injustice. Rather, it is the most selfless, universal and transformative response to death: we are a people who are already risen! Within each of us, within every human being, the interior Teacher teaches peace, urges us toward encounter and inspires us to make supplication. Let us rise from the rubble!”
• He continued, with words that are easily applied to the protagonists and antagonists in the present conflict, “Prayer teaches us how to act. In prayer, our limited human possibilities are joined to the infinite possibilities of God. Thoughts, words and deeds then break the demonic cycle of evil and are placed at the service of the Kingdom of God. A Kingdom in which there is no sword, no drone, no vengeance, no trivialization of evil, no unjust profit, but only dignity, understanding and forgiveness. It is here that we find a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive.  The balance within the human family has been severely destabilized.  Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death.  A world of brothers and sisters with one heavenly Father vanishes, as in a nightmare, giving way to a reality populated by enemies. We are met by threats, rather than the invitation to listen and to come together. Brothers and sisters, those who pray are aware of their own limitations; they do not kill or threaten with death. Instead, death enslaves those who have turned their backs on the living God, turning themselves and their own power into a mute, blind and deaf idol (cf. Ps115:4–8), to which they sacrifice every value, demanding that the whole world bend its knee.”
• The Holy Father said, “The Church is a great people at the service of reconciliation and peace.  She advances without hesitation, even when rejecting the logic of war may lead to misunderstanding and scorn.  She proclaims the Gospel of peace and instills obedience to God rather than any human authority, especially when the inherent dignity of other human beings is threatened by continuous violations of international law.” He finished by reiterating the words of Christ from today’s Gospel, the first words he said when he emerged on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica last May 8 after his election: “Dear friends, peace be with you all!  It is the peace of the Risen Christ, the fruit of his sacrifice of love on the cross.” And then he led us all in a powerful prayer for peace to the Risen Lord, God-with-us still with us in the world. “Lord Jesus, you conquered death without weapons or violence: you shattered its power with the strength of peace. Grant us your peace, as you did to the women filled with doubt on Easter morning, as you did to the disciples who were hiding in fear. Send forth your Spirit, the breath that gives life and reconciles, that turns adversaries and enemies into brothers and sisters. Inspire in us to trust in Mary, your mother, who stood at the foot of your cross with a broken heart, firm in the faith that you would rise again. May the madness of war cease and the Earth be cared for and cultivated by those who still know how to bring forth, protect and love life. Hear us, Lord of life!”
• Today, on Divine Mercy Sunday, we are able to see how Jesus wanted to bring his peace to the world. It would be through extending his mercy. The absence of peace is ultimately and always a result of sin and so the remedy is not just stopping to sin against each other, but receiving mercy from God that can be paid forward to others. Without peace with God, there will never be the fullness of every blessing or the tranquility of order because sin destroys peace. So, on the night of his resurrection, Jesus said to the apostles, “Just as the Father sent me, so I send you!” God the Father had sent Jesus ultimately to save us from our sins — and the consequence of our sins, death — by his life, passion, death and resurrection. “Just as the Father sent me [to forgive sins], so I send you!” So immediately after offering them peace, Jesus was going to send out the apostles to forgive sins in his name and bring peace to the world. But since no one can forgive sins but God alone (Mk 2:7), Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He gave them God the Holy Spirit so that they might forgive sins, just as we hear every time the priest pronounces those beautiful words in confession, “God, the Father of Mercies… has poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins.” And then he said words that point clearly to the Sacrament of Penance: “Those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; those whose sins you retain, they are retained.” Jesus was making them his ministers, his ambassadors. Just as through them, Jesus himself says, “This is my body. … This is the chalice of my blood” in the Mass, so through them Jesus was going to say, “Your sins are forgiven; go in peace!” This was going to be the apostles’ most important mission, the mission in which he involved them intimately as his first action upon rising from the dead. The only way that they would know which sins to forgive and which to retain would be if penitents told them their sins in confession. If we want peace for ourselves and for the world, then Jesus gives us the means and wants us to take Him and those means seriously. Jesus says that the most important factor in peace is not the number of diplomats or the strength of the United Nations. It’s not the elimination of Iran’s capacity to make nuclear weapons, or stopping our President from threatening war crimes, or getting the Israelis and the Palestinians to reach a two-state agreement, or persuading Russia to cease its hostilities toward its neighbor and return what it has stolen. Jesus says that real peace is based recognizing we’ve sinned against him and others and asking for and coming to receive his mercy. Jesus says that real peace is based ultimately on the Sacrament of Confession he instituted and whether we use it. In other words, the most important person in the world if we want real peace is not Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, Vladimir Putin, Antonio Guterres or any other world leader. It’s actually a priest acting in Christ’s name, so that we can receive the peace that the world can’t give or rob.
• Today’s celebration of Divine Mercy brings us to the heart of this mystery. Jesus said to Saint Faustina Kowalska, the Polish sister through whom he revealed his Divine Mercy in the 1930s in Krakow, “Humanity will not find peace until it turns trustfully to divine mercy.” And hence Jesus wanted to help us to turn with trust to that mercy. Through this devotion, he wanted us to recognize our need for his mercy, to trust in it, to ask for it, to come to receive it, and to share it with others. He revealed to her five different practices to help us to do so.
  • Divine Mercy Sunday — The Lord said, “I want… the first Sunday after Easter … to be the Feast of Mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and a shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day, the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day are open all the divine floodgates through which graces flow.” Divine Mercy Sunday is meant to be a day of peace.
  • To make a novena between Good Friday and Divine Mercy Sunday to implore divine mercy — He gave St. Faustina an intention for each day of the novena. He said, “I desire that during these nine days you bring souls to the fount of My mercy, that they may draw from there strength and refreshment and whatever graces they need in the hardships of life and, especially, at the hour of death. On each day you will bring to my Heart a different group of souls, and you will immerse them in this ocean of My mercy, and I will bring all these souls into the house of My Father.” The groups, for each of the days, are all humanity, especially sinners; priests and religious; the pious and faithful; those who do not believe in Jesus and who don’t yet know him; our separated Christian brothers and sisters; the meek and humble and children; those who venerate the mercy of Jesus; those in Purgatory; and the lukewarm. This novena we pray for all, through receiving Divine Mercy, to become peacemakers.
  • To pray to him in the image of Divine Mercy — The Lord revealed to St. Faustina an icon that he desired to be made: “One night when I was in my cell, I perceived the presence of the Lord Jesus dressed in a white tunic. One hand was raised in blessing, the other rested on his chest. From an opening in the tunic in the chest, two great rays were coming out, one red and the other clear… After some time, Jesus said to me, “Paint an image in accordance with what you see, with the inscription, “Jesus, I trust in you.” A little later, Our Lord explained to her the meaning of the two rays: “The two rays represent the Blood and the Water. The white ray represents the Water [baptism], that justifies souls; the red ray represents the Blood that is the life of souls [the Eucharist]. Both rays flow from the depths of my Mercy when, on the Cross, my Heart in agony was opened by the lance.” The image of Divine Mercy is one before whom we implore peace.
  • To pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy — St. Faustina heard an interior voice that taught her this prayer. On the larger beads of the Rosary, one says, “Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and for those of the whole world.” On the ten smaller beads, we pray, “For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” You pray five “decades” in this way, after which, one prays three times the “Holy, Holy, Holy” from the Good Friday reproaches, “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One,” “have mercy on us and on the whole world.” What we’re doing in this beautiful prayer is offering Christ’s own sacrifice during the Triduum, to the Father. We’re lifting up the Eucharist — Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity — and making Christ’s prayer our own. There is no more powerful prayer! Jesus promised, “It pleases me to grant everything they ask of Me by saying the chaplet… if it be compatible with my Will.” This is especially true of the moment of death. Jesus specifically asked priests — and I’m obeying him right now — to “recommend it to sinners as their last hope of salvation. Even if there were a sinner most hardened, if he were to recite this chaplet only once [with an attitude of trust, humility and sorrow for sin], he would receive grace from my infinite mercy.” The Chaplet is, in short, the means by which we implore peace through asking God to forgive our and others’ sins against him and each other.
  • To pray particularly at three in the afternoon, the time in which Jesus died on the Cross, invoking the Mercy of the Lord — Jesus said to St. Faustina, “At three in the afternoon, implore my Mercy, especially for sinners, or at least briefly reflect on my Passion, especially on the abandonment I felt at the moment of agony. This is the hour of great Mercy for the whole world. I will allow you to penetrate my mortal sadness. In that hour, I will deny nothing to the soul that asks me in the name of my Passion.” Jesus gave three indispensable conditions to hear prayers made at the hour of Mercy: the prayer has to be directed to Jesus, take place at three, and invoke the value and merits of his passion. This is a great way to pray for peace in the world, uniting ourselves to Jesus’ work to reestablish peace on Calvary.
• Today, together with Pope Leo and our brothers and sisters throughout the world, we continue our prayer for peace, trusting in the Lord Jesus, who, as St. Peter reminds us in today’s second reading, “in his great mercy gave us new birth to a living hope” through his resurrection. Like the members of the early Church whom we meet in the Acts of the Apostles, we devote ourselves to the teachings of the apostles and their successors, to peaceful life in common, to the celebration of the Mass and to prayer. With everyone who fears the Lord, as we prayed in the Psalm, we proclaim anew, “His mercy endures forever.” And Like St. Thomas in the Gospel, we not only look at Jesus’ wounds, but we’re invited to enter into those wounds that brought peace to the world, putting not just our hands but our whole life in Jesus’ side out of which flowed blood and water. As we, in this Mass, offer the Eternal Father in heaven Jesus’ body, blood, soul and divinity, we ask God Father, who is Rich in Mercy, to send us the Holy Spirit so that, trusting in Jesus’ mercy, we may not merely mystically enter his saving wounds but sacramentally become one with Jesus, who is Mercy incarnate, as we seek to become his missionaries of mercy in the midst of a world ever desperate for that gift.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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