On April 30th in the year 2000, the second Sunday of Easter, Pope John Paul II, St. John Paul

the second, somewhat unexpectedly took the opportunity of St. Faustina's canonization to proclaim

that the second Sunday of Easter would henceforth be established as the Feast of the Divine Mercy

to be celebrated in perpetuity by the Universal Church.

Since tonight's lecture is situated in between our celebration of the Sunday of the Lord's resurrection

and our celebration of the divine mercy, I thought it might be appropriate, therefore,

to consider the relationship between these two realities. In particular, I would like to examine

how the appearances of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in his resurrected body serve to manifest

to us God's mercy.

In order to do this, I will begin with a few brief preliminary remarks about how popular

conceptions and manners of speech about mercy inform our thought about what mercy is. Next, in a more substantial section, I will examine

some basic tenets of God's mercy as they are presented in the Old and New Testaments.

I will then proceed to a presentation of Thomas's account of mercy that takes into account these conceptions of mercy and justice as they

are found in the Old Testament and the New Testament, but also how he develops them. Finally, I will

briefly examine the resurrection appearances in John 20 and offer an interpretation that addresses how they qualify as works of God's mercy

according to the Thomistic model.

So our first task tonight then is to determine what we mean when we speak about mercy.

Anecdotally speaking, it seems to me that many people, even believers who acknowledge the biblical insight that

God is a merciful God, think and speak about mercy

as a reality that pertains primarily to human behavior. More specifically, mercy is often

used in common parlance as a synonym of either forbearance or compassion. So the judge shows mercy

when he commutes the sentence of one convicted of a crime, or the passerby shows

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