🙏 SUNDAY INSIGHTS - THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD 🙏

First Reading - Acts 1:1-11

Second Reading - Ephesians 1:17-23

Gospel - Matthew 28:16-20

Leonardo da Vinci had started to work on a large canvas in his studio. For a while he worked at it – choosing the subject, planning the perspective, sketching the outline, applying the colors, with his own inimitable genius. Then suddenly he stopped working on it. Summoning one of his talented students, the master invited him to complete the work. The horrified student protested that he was both unworthy and unable to complete the great painting which his master had begun. But da Vinci silenced him. “Will not what I have done inspire you to do your best?” — Jesus our Master began to spread the Good News some two thousand years ago by what he said and did, and supremely by what he suffered. Jesus illustrated his message and left us to finish the picture. Will Jesus’ life not inspire us to finish the picture? This is the message of the Ascension

Today’s readings describe the Ascension of the Lord Jesus his Heavenly glory after promising to send the Holy Spirit to the Apostles as the source of Heavenly power and commanding them to bear witness to Him through their lives and preaching throughout the world. But the ascended Jesus is still with us because of His promise, “I am with you always; yes, to the end of time” (Mt 28-20). He is with us at all times and in all places, releasing a new energy upon the earth, the energy of the Holy Spirit.

The event of Jesus’ Ascension, recorded in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, serves as today’s first reading. Before ascending to the Father, Jesus instructed the apostles to “remain in Jerusalem and wait for the baptism by the Holy Spirit” so that they might become Jesus’ “witnesses to the ends of the earth” by the power of the Holy Spirit. Then “a cloud took Jesus from the sight” of the disciples, and two heavenly messengers in white garments gave them the assurance of Jesus’ coming return to earth in glory. “Luke will note that [the disciples] number about 120. This numeric note is more than mere census; the multiple of twelve underscores Luke’s conviction that this Jerusalem community of “Jews for Jesus” begins to fulfill the ancient expectation that “The Age to Come” would entail the restoration of Israel. The list of eleven disciples is conspicuous for the absence of Judas. The first agenda item for this post-Ascension community will be the restoration of the core group to the number twelve, showing the apostolic concern for restoring the number to the very meaning of Jesus’ original choice of a symbolic Twelve.” 

In the second reading, the first part of our passage prays for the Church’s growth in wisdom and knowledge and looks to the risen and ascended Christ for the power to foster this growth. The hymn then goes on to elaborate on the exaltation and kingship of Christ. St. Paul got a glimpse of this post-Ascension glory on the road to Damascus. In Ephesians, Paul explains the theological meaning of Jesus’ exaltation by saying, “May God enlighten the eyes of our hearts so that we may know the great hope to which we have been called.” Our great hope is that one day we too will be ascending to Heavenly glory, provided that, with His grace, we live out our Faith in Him through the mission of loving service He entrusts to us. Our mission is to preach the Good News of salvation to the whole world by word and deed. We continue to receive the Divine assistance and spiritual gifts necessary for our Christian witnessing through the Holy Spirit Whom the risen Jesus, after His Ascension, asks the Father to send on the Church.

Today’s Gospel tells us that, with his return to the Father, Jesus completes his mission on earth. But just before his Ascension, Jesus entrusted to the disciples the mission of preaching the Good News and evangelizing the whole world by bearing witness to him through their words and lives. It is in the Ascension that we see Jesus entering fully into the life and glory of God. In the descriptions of Christ after his Resurrection, we are given a hint of what life will be like in Heaven. The prospect of sharing that glory should be the driving force of our lives.

Dear friends, we need to be proclaimers and evangelizers. To be a Christian is to be a proclaimer and an evangelizer. There is a difference between preaching and proclaiming. We preach with words, but we proclaim with our lives. Let us ask the guidance of the Spirit of God to bear witness to Jesus by our transparent Christian lives.

We have a teaching mission. Jesus taught us lessons of Faith, Hope, Love, forgiveness, mercy, and salvation by his life and his preaching and gave us the same mission for our brothers and sisters. Hence, let us learn about Jesus and his teachings through our daily study of the Bible and the teachings of the Church, experience Jesus in personal prayer, our reception of the Sacraments and our works of charity, and convey to others Jesus whom we experience with the help of the Holy Spirit. 

We need Jesus as our source of strength and encouragement in doing His will. We will be able to overcome doubts about our Faith and baseless fears, anxieties, and worries by meditating on Jesus’ Ascension and the lesson it teaches — that we, too, are called to share his glory in Heaven.