Cycle C - Year I:

2 June 2019: Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

(Liturgical Color: White)

Readings:

First Reading: Acts 1:1-11

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:17-23

Gospel: Please Read Luke 24:46-53

We are witnesses of the Lord!

The Church celebrates this Sunday the Solemnity of the Lord's Ascension forty days after His Resurrection.

The Lord's Ascension means Christ's temporal life comes to an end, but not life itself. That is to say, Jesus will no longer accompany His Apostles. He will no longer travel with them from one village to the next. Instead, the Lord of life and history will be behind every event in salvation history and within every heart that belongs to Him. Jesus will make His presence felt in every community that worships Him and within every innermost room that holds Him. He will no longer have to travel to meet us. He will be with us, in us, and live through us.

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. The Ascension also makes way for the Holy Spirit to come down to earth and inspires the Apostles to preach the Gospel to every land. Thus, the mystery of Jesus' Ascension is intimately tied with the mystery of the coming of the Advocate.

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)

The Lord's Ascension has become their great hope for the Apostles. It was this encounter with the Resurrected Christ that compelled the Apostles to preach the Gospel without fear, even to the point of shedding their blood as martyrs to testify to this truth.

Now, the Lord's departure and ascension were both the end and the beginning for the Apostles and first disciples. Meaning, 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.

The Gospel account of the Lord's Ascension speaks of His final instructions to the Apostles, traditionally called the "Great Commissioning". This means that although our Lord goes back to the Father, His saving work continues in our world through us followers. Because we are commissioned to labor on Jesus' behalf until He comes again to bring all things to completion at the end of time.

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." (Ll 24:46) Because this is the essence of Christ's mission, and therefore of the Gospel. Everything else --Jesus' teachings, healing, preaching, and miracles He performed-- is to point and prepare for this mission, and have meaning only because of it.

Now we ask ourselves: What do we do after the Lord's Ascension? Well, we do not only wait on the Lord's return. Jesus 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 witnesses by the sacrifice of their very lives.

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

Now as the Lord has given the commission, 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.

53rd World Communication Day: We also celebrate this event this Sunday, with the theme: "We are members one of another: From social network communities to the human community." Let us pray and support each other as one community of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

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

Ad Jesum per Mariam!