Cycle A - Year 1:  

28 May 2017:  Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord 

(Liturgical Color: White)

Gospel:Please Read Matthew 28:16-20

Go, share the faith!

A community is alive and growing when it is able to produce new breed of individuals to take over the leadership. We can say the same for any other groups or organizations.  This is evident in the basic unit of a family. The children must be able to take over from their parents the responsibility of taking care of the family, and raising their own families as well over time. Because the gift of life is not meant to be forever, in our human world, that is.

Continuity is also necessary even in the much wider reality of our faith. Recall that in the Old Testament the chosen people had the history of unfaithfulness to God. In the New Testament, God Himself sent His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to lead us back to the Father. And so, when Jesus has accomplished His mission, it is time for Him to move on, so to speak, and pass on the leadership to the first Apostles.

This Sunday is the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord. Forty days after His resurrection Jesus returns to the Father. The first reading from 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)

The Lord's departure and ascension, for His disciples, is 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.

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

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 share the faith, to be heralds of the Good News and ambassadors for our Lord Jesus Christ in our generation today.

Although Jesus is no longer with His disciples physically, in reality our Lord does not leave His followers to work by themselves in 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 the promise of our Lord to send the Holy Spirit is fulfilled.

Also this Sunday the Church celebrates the 51st World Communications Day. It is a timely reminder for us to make use of the wonder of digital media to spread the Good News and continue our Lord's redemptive mission  on earth through His Holy Church. Let us also pray that those spreading "fake news" may change their ways, for love of country and for fear of the Lord.

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

Ad Jesum per Mariam!