Cycle A - Year II:   

1 June 2014: Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord 

(Liturgical color: White)

Matthew 28:16-20

Time to move on, time to share the faith!

An organization or a community is said to be progressive and growing when it is able to produce new breed of individuals to take over the leadership.

Even in the family, the children must be able to take over from their parents the responsibility of taking care of the family and its members over time. Because the gift of life is not meant to be forever.

Continuity is necessary even in the much wider reality of our faith. The chosen people has the history of unfaithfulness to God from the Old Testament to the New Testament. So our loving God has sent his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to lead us back to the Father. And when Jesus has accomplished the Father's will, it is time for Him to move on, so to speak, and pass on the leadership to the first apostles.

Today is the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. Forty days after his resurrection, Jesus returns to the Father. The first reading in the Acts of the Apostles describes this momentous event: "When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight." (Acts 1:9)

For his disciples, the Lord's departure and ascension were both an end and a beginning. It was the end of Jesus' physical presence with the disciples, but at the same time it is also the beginning of the Lord's presence with them in a new way.

In today's Gospel the evangelist Matthew focuses on Jesus' parting words to the disciples, which are both comforting and reassuring: "And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age." (Mt. 28:20, which are also the concluding words of Matthew's gospel)

In practical life, Ascension Sunday is the great commissioning which the risen Christ gives to his disciples and to the whole Church. That means, all of us who believe must share in this mission to be heralds of the Good News and ambassadors for our Lord Jesus Christ.

Although our Lord will not be with his disciple physically, in reality He does not leave his followers in completing their mission.  For the risen Lord continues to work in and through us by the power of the Holy Spirit. And next Sunday, the Church will celebrate Pentecost Sunday, when Jesus' promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit is fulfilled.

Also today the Church celebrates the 48th World Communications Day. It is a timely reminder for us to make use of the wonder of the digital media to spread the Good News and continue our Lord's redemptive mission on earth through his Holy Church.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!