ASCENSION
OF OUR
LORD
Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians
1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-2
All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the
age.
All power
and authority has been given to Jesus; but He is going away, He is not going to
use it Personally in the sight of the world. The glorious work of making
disciples of all nations is to be accomplished by His disciples, His glory is
to be theirs, that of His Church, not His own so far as the world will be able
to judge.
This is in
accordance with a consistent practice of Jesus: after having taken our
sins upon Himself, He gives us His Own Spirit to help us confirm and extend His
conquest of and dominion over sin; He makes us adopted children of the Father
Who sent Him; yes, He consistently seeks to glorify us and, apparently, let
Himself disappear somewhat into the background:
On that day you will ask in My name, and I do not tell
you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves
you, because you have loved Me and have come to believe that I came from
God.
He does
seem to be living-out the words He spoke to His Father (John 17:10):
All Mine are Yours and Yours are Mine and I am glorified in them.
Indeed,
Jesus even went so far on one occasion to speak of the Spirit and of the Father
with respect to us, omitting Himself altogether (Matthew 10:19-20):
When they hand you over, do not worry about how you
are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you
are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your
Father speaking through you.
However,
ironically enough, His Personal humility and love for us is the reason why the
world hated Jesus and, indeed, still hates Him and His; it is not because of
Jesus Himself -- His human personality and character are universally admired by
unbiased students of His life -- no, the world’s great trouble with
Jesus, so to speak, is that He loves us too much: having Himself shared
in our humanity, He wills to share His divinity with us, to make us divine in
Himself, that we might thus know and experience something of the
transcendental, all-embracing and totally self-giving, love which is Divine
LIFE.
Having made
mankind in His own likeness, that is, having endowed him with spiritual
freedom, God wills – and therefore the Father sent His Son among us – to free
us from that which would destroy our likeness with Himself, namely
sin. He sent His Son, that He might offer us a choice, that He
might help and enable us to use our spiritual freedom to reject the Devil’s
‘toffy-apple of sin’ and deliberately choose to acknowledge the goodness, and
give thanks for the great beauty, of our original creation. And then,
more wondrously still, to embrace whole-heartedly the eternal promise and
sublime fulfilment of our being which is in Jesus, perfect Man and
perfect God, Who, having innocently shared our humanity to the full even to tasting the deepest dregs
of its suffering-for-sin, nevertheless, still willed to draw us to Himself as
members of His Body able to share in His divine glory and, by His
Spirit, become adopted and true children of the heavenly Father.
Now, the
gracious and glorious climax of this drama takes place in the Ascension of Our
Blessed Lord today … Alleluia! Deo Gratias!! Thanks be to God!!!
The supreme
question now, as we celebrate His Ascension, is of course, what sort of
relationship do we have – you and I personally -- with Jesus?
Are we able to trust Him totally with our future, are we willing to love
Him in and above our present experience of life on earth -- so visibly
beautiful for all and so satisfying for many -- amidst men and women of all sorts searching for, and some already proclaiming themselves to have
found their own happiness and well-being?
Here, Saint
Paul’s prayer in our second reading is so beautifully appropriate:
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, give you a (S)spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of
Him … that you may know what is the hope that belongs to His call, and what is
the surpassing greatness of His power for us who believe in accordance with the
exercise of His great might which He worked in Christ.
Dear People
of God, there Paul is telling us that the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus is the model
and power-centre for our own rising with Him to the Father Who originally
called us. How, though, is that power to be activated in our lives
for us?
We cannot,
like Magdalen -- clinging to the Jesus of her earthly memories -- be ever
seeking and asking of Him earthly blessings and comfort in our passage through
life; we have now to learn, with her, how to love Jesus aright as our Ascended Lord, for did
not Jesus say to her:
Stop holding on to Me, for I have not yet ascended to
the Father. But go to My brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to My Father and
your Father, to My God and your God.’” (John 20:17)
The key to
activating the power of Jesus’ ascension in our own lives is, dear People of
God, perfectly simple -- as unquestioning Mary Magdalen found – namely obedience
to Jesus the Risen Lord, and to His Spirit in Mother Church and in
our Catholic and Christian conscience!! And that requirement of obedience to
Jesus is the ultimate reason for the world’s hatred of Him: for despite
the fact of His sovereign love for us, and the eternal salvation He offers us,
it all -- of its very nature -- involves and demands our obedience; and
human pride is at the root of all our sinfulness and weakness.
Behold I am sending the promise of My Father upon you,
stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:49)
Let us
therefore trust not in ourselves, nor allow ourselves to be satisfied by joys of this world or any spiritual self satisfaction; for the work of our salvation is ever on-going and
it calls on us who try to attend, observe, and live-out-to-the-full Mother Church’s Liturgy, to
accede to the words of Our Lord and pray most sincerely for the proximate
coming of God’s Gift of His Most Holy Spirit, that He might be poured out in
much-needed fulness upon Mother Church to invest her with heavenly power in her
struggles for the Truth of Jesus against the darkness threatening the
world. Let us also invoke the Holy Spirit of Jesus into our own hearts,
to help each of us learn to better say ‘no’ to ourselves and to all sin; and –
in the measure of His unstinting goodness and in accordance with His own good
and immeasurable time -- to guide us, lead us, form us for closeness, yes, even
intimacy, with Jesus, our own Flesh-and-Blood Lord and Saviour, and in Him, for
love of the heavenly Father.
