Cycle C - Year II:  

8 May 2016: Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord 

(Liturgical color: White)

Gospel: Please read  Luke 24:46-53

We are witnesses!

This Sunday the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Lord's Ascension, which is forty days after the Lord's Resurrection.

What does our Catechism tell us about this great event in the life of Jesus?

The Lord's Ascension into heaven to the right hand of the Father is among the articles of Faith we profess in the Apostles' Creed. We believe by this mystery that Jesus Christ, in His resurrected body and soul, went up to heaven and took His seat at the right hand of God the Father. Thus, the Ascension makes way for the Holy Spirit to come down to earth and inspires the Apostles to preach the Gospel to every land.

The Church further teaches that when Christ ascended into heaven He did so on His own power and He ascended as true God and true Man. This belief is rooted in the eyewitness testimony of the Apostles themselves. The first reading in the Acts of the Apostles describes this momentous event: "When he (Jesus) had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight." (Acts 1:9)

For the Apostles, the Lord's Ascension becomes their great hope. It was this encounter with the Resurrected One that compelled the Apostles to preach the Gospel without fear, even to the point of shedding their blood as martyrs.

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

Every Gospel account of the Lord's Ascension contains His final instructions to the Apostles, traditionally called the Great Commissioning.

Our Lord  goes back to the Father but His saving work continues in our world through us. We are commissioned to labor on His behalf until He comes again to bring all things to completion.

The Gospel narrative of the Ascension is from St. Luke.  In His final discourse, our Lord begins with a summary of what He accomplished: "Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day." (Lk 24:46) Because this is the essence of His mission, and therefore of the Gospel. Everything else -- His teachings, healing, preaching, and miracles He performed -- is to point and prepare for this mission, and have meaning only because of it.

So now, what do we do after the Lord's ascension? We do not merely wait on the Lord's return. Our Lord Himself makes known the continuing nature of His mission through us, namely, "that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Lk 24:47) Because by His death and resurrection Christ has already won for us heaven and all the graces necessary to get there.

The Church plays a very important role in the work to be done by us, the new disciples. Through the Church the Lord extends Himself to all nations, making present and effective the graces He won for us.

The Lord said to the Apostles: "You are witnesses of these things." (Lk 24:48)  This means that the Apostles are to testify to His truth. And so they did, as they witnessed by the sacrifice of their very lives. 

This Great Commissioning also now applies to all of us in our generation as followers of our Lord Jesus Christ. For we, too, are witnesses. By faith in the Apostles witness we know what they saw with their own eyes. We share in their knowledge of all that Christ said and did. And because we are witnesses, we, like the first Apostles, must also bear witness to the Truth, even with our very lives when necessary.

In sum, as the Lord has given the commission, but He also promises the means to accomplish it: the Holy Spirit. For no one can bear witness to our Lord unless the Holy Spirit enables him or her.

The Church also celebrates this Sunday the 50th World Communication Day with the theme, "Communication and Mercy: A Fruitful Encounter". Let us witness and communicate to the world the Lord's saving work especially in this Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy."

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

Ad Jesum per Mariam!