2nd Monday of Easter
13 April 2026
Born from above
Yesterday, on Divine Mercy Sunday, the Church made something very clear: the Resurrection is not just about victory over death, it is about the outpouring of mercy. That’s not an isolated theme for one Sunday. It launches the entire Easter season. From this point forward, everything we hear, everything we celebrate, is meant to be seen through that lens: the mercy of God made visible in the risen Christ.
And today’s readings show us what that mercy actually does.
Let’s begin with the Gospel. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. He is searching. Curious. Open, but not yet understanding. And Jesus tells him something that sounds almost confusing: “Unless one is born from above… he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus doesn’t get it. He hears it in purely natural terms: “How can a grown man be born again?” And Jesus pushes deeper: “What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of spirit is spirit.”
In other words, Jesus is not talking about improving your life. He is talking about new life. Not modification. Transformation.
And this is where Divine Mercy comes in.
Because mercy is not just God overlooking our sins. Mercy is God re-creating us. It is God giving us a new beginning we could never give ourselves. It means your life now comes from God.
That’s mercy.
Now look at the first reading. The apostles have just been threatened. Told to stop preaching in the name of Jesus. So what do they do? They pray.
But notice what they do not pray for. They don’t ask for safety. They don’t ask for protection. They don’t ask for an easier path. They pray for boldness. “Enable your servants to speak your word with all boldness.”
And then something happens: “The place where they were gathered shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” And they continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
Why that response?
Because they are living the new life Jesus spoke about. They are no longer operating out of fear, that’s the old life. They are living from the Spirit, that’s the new life.
And that is the fruit of mercy.
This is important. Because sometimes we reduce mercy to something small. We think mercy means God forgives me… and then I go back to the same life.
But that’s not what Jesus is describing.
Mercy doesn’t just bring you back, it sends you forward. It makes you new. It gives you a different source of life altogether.
Nicodemus struggles because he’s trying to understand this from the outside. But Jesus is saying: this is something that has to happen within you.
“The wind blows where it wills… you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” You can’t control it. You can’t manufacture it. You can only receive it.
And that’s the invitation for us today.
Yesterday we celebrated Divine Mercy. Today we are asked: will you live from it? Will you allow God to actually make you new? Or will you keep trying to live the Christian life from your own strength?
Because here’s the truth:
If you are trying to live this life on your own, you will always fall back into fear, into routine, into old patterns.
But if you live from the Spirit—if you allow yourself to be “born from above”—everything changes.
Not all at once. Not perfectly. But truly.