Mercy: Help My Unbelief | Divine Mercy Sunday | 4.24.2022 | Fr. Brian Larkin

Our Lady Of Lourdes Podcast

Today’s Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/reading... “Mercy creates a community.” Fr. Brian Larkin Blaise Pascal: “There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.” https://kidadl.com/quotes/blaise-pasc... “I want to invite you into being that saint. I want to invite you into that freedom of knowing that you are a sinner who is loved.” —Fr. Brian Larkin John 20: 19: “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/20 2 reasons you lock the door on your life: 1. "Because you have a sin in your life that you have to hide from everybody. Maybe you feel you even need to hide it from God. It isolates us, and keeps us from actually loving each other."—Fr. Brian Larkin 2. "Maybe some of you don’t know that you’re sinners."—Fr. Brian Larkin “But Jesus breaks in, and that’s the good news. No door can keep His resurrected presence out.”—Fr. Brian Larkin Psalm 107:15–16 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/107 “Let them thank the LORD for his mercy, such wondrous deeds for the children of Adam. For he broke down the gates of bronze and snapped the bars of iron.” “The good news of the Gospel is NOT that you got your act together, and that you conquered your sin, and therefore God Loves you. The Good News of the Gospel is that the love and the mercy of God cuts through chains, and in your isolation and shame, brokenness and aloneness, the love of God can break through those doors.”—Fr. Brian Larkin “Jesus Christ didn’t have to die on a cross, but it was fitting. Christ went to such lengths so you would have no doubt how much you are loved.”—Fr. Brian Larkin “Lord, I believe—help my unbelief. Help me to know tonight, to the depths of my soul, that your mercy could be even for me.”—Fr. Brian Larkin ………………………. 2nd Homily: The Christian Community: Maybe some of you don’t know that you’re sinners. “What created our church was love on a cross. We love each other because we are sinners who are loved. We know that we’re sinners who have been redeemed.” —Fr. Brian Larkin Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer https://www.wtsbooks.com/products/lif... “You do not need to go on lying to yourself and your brothers as if you were without sin. You can dare to be a sinner.”—Fr. Brian Larkin “What binds us together is that I don’t deserve the love of God. I don’t have my act together as a priest. I don’t. I am a sinner who does not deserve the mercy of God, and that’s what binds us together. When you hide that truth from each other, what happens is the world outside does not believe the good news of redemption, because you and I pretend to be perfect.” —Fr. Brian Larkin “I know what everybody wants—it’s the same thing I want. I want to be close to people. I want to have deep, abiding friendships here at Lourdes and St. Louis, and I want to have people in my life who know me and love me, and, brothers and sisters, be in a church of mercy, which means that you and I are no longer locked in those rooms with our sins.” —Fr. Brian Larkin “When Christ breaks into that room of yours, the doors open.”…”The question for us is will we let that mercy of God live in us? Will our church be a place where men and women can dare to be sinners? Where we can be who we really are? Where we can let down our masks and stop pretending that we have it all together, and we can rejoice, because every one of us is a sinner who has been loved and redeemed.” —Fr. Brian Larkin You can find great consolation in this: Moses was a murderer. David was an adulterer who also murdered Bathsheba’s husband. They were horrible sinners who were loved. And so are you and I.