Second Sunday of Easter
April 10, 2026
Acts 2:42-47; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
How many of us today can identify with one or another of the disciples hidden away in the upper room? Just a few days before, they were all at the table sharing in the Communion of love and faith, which hours later would turn into a nightmare and emotional roller coaster for each one of them. Only three of the eleven were chosen to go with Jesus into the depths of the garden of Gethsemane; the rest were left to ponder and wonder.
The three chosen ones, Peter, James, and John, fell asleep from emotional weariness and uncertainty. Their leader was then taken from them, tortured, killed, and buried in the tomb. They ran away to hide and protect themselves.
And now, two days later, there are stories from the woman who went to visit the tomb, that the tomb was empty, and Jesus was raised from the dead.
No wonder that when Jesus visited them in the room, they were incredulous. Though full of joy and happiness at seeing him, they must also have been confused, their emotions still on a high: sadness and guilt at having abandoned Jesus in his most desperate moments, now mingled with the wonder of seeing him again in their midst. Yet all Jesus said was, Peace be with you. He offered no punishment or judgment — only pure forgiveness and mercy. Through signs, he showed he truly was the Risen Christ.
All the disciples were fearful, unbelieving, and struggling with their own emotions and feelings of guilt. Yet we always seem to focus on poor Thomas and his doubts. However, this story is really about each and every one of us: trying to live a life worthy of our faith and call for justice; struggling with doubt, weighed down with fear, and constantly falling short of what we know is expected from us as believers in goodness and peace.
My mission in Guatemala has taken me on a journey very similar to the disciples’. I arrived in Guatemala in 1994, fresh from language school and just starting to speak Spanish. I was fearful, doubtful, and yet anxious to ‘begin’ my mission. I began to learn of the suffering of the Guatemalan people during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), which was a 36-year armed conflict between the government and people who wanted a better future due to land inequality and social exclusion. Every family was affected in one way or another, but the Indigenous people suffered the most. Yet these people never lost faith in a merciful God.
My work with people living with HIV has opened my eyes to a merciful God, a God who doesn’t judge or condemn or punish. A God who is manifested in the people who care for the families affected by HIV, the grandmothers looking after their grandchildren when they have become orphans, the mother who sits with her son as he faces death from advanced infections, and the neighbors who accompany the people living with HIV in their communities.
I have seen suffering in the faces of the women living with HIV who are victims of domestic violence, yet stay with their partners for fear of reprisals and for fear of losing their children. I have seen a transformation in women who stand up for their rights and demand that absent fathers pay alimony for food for the children.
Yes, today’s reading is about the visit of Jesus in the upper room, but it is also about community and Jesus’s gift of the Holy Spirit to animate, strengthen, and send his representatives out into the world and bring love, joy, and peace.
It is about the ways in which we are called to share that peace and that joy, with a world so filled with doubt and fear. Jesus did not join his disciples in the upper room simply to celebrate his resurrection with them. He also joined them there to give them the gift of the Holy Spirit and to send them to the world to continue his mission. “As the Father has sent me,” Jesus said to them and to us, “so I send you.”
Jesus wants us as missioners to go into a world in the grip of death and bring justice, peace, and joy, to breathe new life into the world. And yes, at this moment in history, our world needs that new life more than ever, doesn’t it? And if we wonder where it will come from, it will come from us. We are all called to be God’s plan to bring new life into a dying world, through our words, our deeds, our hope, our faith, our love, our witness in our daily lives, our acts of love to others; all of this done in Jesus’ name with the help of the Holy Spirit; all this is how the world catches a glimpse of our risen Lord.
Maryknoll Sister Delia Marie “Dee” Smith, from Bury, Lancashire, England, served as a lay missioner in Kenya before joining the congregation in 1990. She has ministered for over three decades in Guatemala, where she founded Proyecto Vida, a comprehensive HIV/AIDS ministry, and Hospicio Santa María, a hospice in the town of Pajapita in the department of San Marcos.
To read other Scripture reflections published by the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, click here.
Featured image: Thanti Riess, available in the public domain via Unsplash.
