The Ascension Year C 2016

         THE ASCENSION (C)                          

 (Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:17-23; Luke 24:46-53)

In today's first reading, and in the excerpt we heard from St. Luke's Gospel, we were told how Jesus ascended to heaven as His faithful eleven apostles watched in wonder:

He led them out as far as Bethany, raised His hands and blessed them.  As He blessed them He parted from them and was taken up into heaven.

Just cast your minds back to the Garden of Gethsemane and Calvary and recall how Jesus had besought His Father to strengthen and guide Him in His hour of need:

“Father, if You are willing, take this cup away from Me; still, not My will but Yours be done."  And to strengthen Him an angel from heaven appeared to Him.  (Luke 22:42-43)

Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit"; and when He had said this He breathed His last. (Luke 23:46-7)

With such words in mind, surely we can be in no doubt about what Jesus would be doing when, after rising from the dead, He ascended, as we are told, to His Father in heaven: 

After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was taken up into heaven and took His seat at the right hand of God.  (Mark 16:19)

There at the right hand of His Father in heaven He is, first and foremost, giving glory and thanks to His Father for raising and exalting Him in answer to the prayers He had made during His agony on earth; and then He is also doing that for which He had been sent as man and for which He embraced the Cross, namely, seeking, working, our salvation:

Christ Who died, and furthermore is also risen, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also makes intercession for us. (Romans 8:34)

There, St. Paul tells us:

He must reign till (1 Corinthians 15:25) God has put all things under His feet, and (given) Him as head over all things to the Church.

Jesus, in heavenly glory at the right hand of the Father, gives glory to His Father and intercedes for His Church and His People, for you and me, and for all who will love and obey Him.  Jesus’ prayers are effective, and so, on earth, His most Holy Spirit is strengthening, inspiring, and guiding, Mother Church to proclaim the Good News to all creation and lead the fight against sin.  When that work has been completed, and that war is finally won, then God's Kingdom will be established here on earth by the Son of Man appearing with His angels in glory on the clouds of heaven:

Then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to His God and Father; then the Son Himself will also be subjected to the One Who subjected everything to Him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:24, 28)

Then, indeed, God will be all in all, when Jesus, the Lord of Glory, at the head of His glorious Body, the Church, and on behalf of all creation, solemnly intones the great eternal hymn of heavenly praise of the Father (Revelation 15:4):

(May all) glorify Your name.  For You alone are holy.  All the nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.

This supreme task, duty, joy and glory, of redeemed mankind and glorified creation, to give thanks to God for ever and ever, was inaugurated at Our Lord's Ascension when the Son joyfully brought His own glorious Body and Blood before His heavenly Father, with mankind having been triumphantly freed from Satan’s chains of sin and death, and to be subsequently endowed with the life-giving Spirit of Truth and Love; and that is the goal towards which the history of salvation now irresistibly goes forward as to its ultimate fulfilment.

This was beautifully understood and explained by St. Irenaeus, in the second century, in his fight against heresies, as a modern author tells us:

"St. Irenaeus understands the Church as an ontologically unique community, not as a collection of spiritual individuals.  The special calling of that community is not to escape the world but to participate in its transformation.  Together with the Ascended One, in the Spirit, its members are granted … to offer a genuine oblation of thanksgiving on behalf of creation.  Through a living anthem of praise the Church overcomes the world's dissipating mode of existence and its bondage to the powers of darkness." (Ascension and Ecclesia, 70)

That hymn of thanksgiving which has now been intoned in heaven, as I said, by the Ascended Lord, is taken up by Mother Church on earth in a paean of praise which is her liturgical worship, above all at Holy Mass, in the Eucharist, which very word means "thanksgiving".

All thus far concerns the eternal purpose and ‘factual reality’ – for believers – of the Ascension of Our Blessed Lord.

But what about the Personal aspect of that glorious event … how did Jesus Himself approach, experience, appreciate, His Ascension?  If we can find out just a little of that we would have a most precious guide for our own preparation for and approach to death.

For Jesus, His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension were stages of one whole and integrated process of divine Fulfilment.  We, on the other hand, tend to think of our eventual death ‘on its own’, so to speak:  for very many Christians and Catholics death is the ‘end of life’, something that will hopefully happen to them ‘in the twinkling of an eye’, when they are too occupied or distracted to think about it; there are others, however, who treat death more seriously, acknowledging its approach towards them by looking back more carefully, repenting more whole-heartedly for past sins.  Future aspirations or expectations expressing present hope for a largely unknown future are, on the other hand, rare indeed and somewhat airy-fairy at the best when compared with regret for the past which is usually very real and heavy with well-known responsibility and fault.

We are disciples of Jesus, however, and He is not only Our Lord and Master, but our Guide and Saviour, and He approached His Death with His Ascension in view, with the result that His Ascension had a most important effect on and imparted a most Personally intimate complexion to His approaching death.   Death was, for Jesus, not DEATH as for most modern men and women, but a ‘transitus’, a going home to His Father, and that outlook can and should be of great assistance to each of us individually:

I am going away … If you loved Me you would rejoice that I am going to the Father for the Father is greater than I. …. The ruler of the world is coming.  He has no power over Me, but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded Me.  (John 14: 28-31)

I came from the Father and have come into the world.  Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.  (John 16: 28)

Father, the hour has come.  Give glory to Your Son, so that Your Son may glorify You.  I glorified You on earth by accomplishing the work that You gave Me to do.  Now, glorify Me, Father, with You, with the glory that I had with You before the world began.  (John 17:1-5)

This hope to share in Jesus’ comprehensive attitude to death is no mere pipe-dream, because Jesus prayed most particularly for us to His Father:

Father, they are Your gift to Me. I wish that where I am they also may be with Me, that they may see My glory that You gave Me, because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.  Righteous Father, the world does not know You, but I know You, and they know that You sent Me.   I made known to them Your Name and I will make it known, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them.”   (John 17:24–26)

The Father’s love, lavished with total exuberance on Jesus, is available to us, Jesus’ prayer assures us; let us therefore give thanks for it, return it, and allow it to draw us with Jesus towards the Father more and more: with ever deeper and more sincere repentance for our sins, indeed, but also with a lovingly humble share in His, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour’s confidence and gratitude.  Jesus most markedly urged such trust and confidence in the Father in the following message given to Mary for His disciples

Jesus said to (Mary), “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)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the mystery of the Ascension of our Blessed Lord, is a test for faith as Our Lord Himself declared (John 6:62-64):

What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?  It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.   

By that very token however our Lord’s Ascension is a supremely rich source of food for Catholic life (with Jesus by the Spirit) and contemplation (of Jesus and His Father).  Here I have merely tapped open just a little trickle of such doctrinal devotion, may your prayer and faith win you more.

             

                                                                                   

           

6th Sunday of Easter Year C 2016

6^th. Sunday of Easter (C)

(Acts 15:1-2, 22-29; Rev. 21:10-14, 22-23; John 14:23-29)

Today, dear People of God, let us give careful attention to these words of Our Lord:

Whoever loves Me will keep My word;

for they will help us deal with difficulties easily arising from life in modern society which can, at times, serve to weaken the confidence and lessen the commitment of some Catholics and Christians.   Something of that sort happened at the very beginning of the Church as we heard in our first reading:

The Apostles and the elders (in Jerusalem) to the brothers of Gentile origin: “Greetings.  Since we have heard that some of our number who went out without any mandate from us have upset you with their teachings and disturbed your peace of mind, we have decided with one accord …”  to set things right.

Sometimes, in our own days, well-intentioned but fragile believers are puzzled now, not by apparently-official Judaizers pushing observances of the Mosaic Law onto Christian neophytes, but by friends and reasonably well-known individuals who do not practice any religion and yet consider themselves ‘as good as any religious person’ because, as they assert, they live a good life, and seem to be accepted as such by others who say that it is not necessary to go to Church in order to live a ‘good’ life.  Such encounters, such experiences, can generate vague feelings of insecurity, sow tiny seeds of anxiety and doubt, in remote corners of the hearts and minds of some believers; and should they, subsequently, encounter others who are more positively antagonistic towards religion, scornfully referring to the faithful as "church-goers" and deriding them with words such as “hypocrites" and other terms of disdain or even contempt, then, they can find themselves deprived of a measure of that peace, joy, and confidence which should normally accompany their practice of the faith.

Of course, upsets and doubts of that nature arise because such believers allow themselves to be far too easily impressed by appearances and popular opinions.   Moreover, it is not infrequently the case that, despite their measure of devotion, these believers are not sufficiently aware of and alive to the implications of their faith, with the result that they have too few personal convictions and are, consequently, easily led to accept the world's criteria by the fact that they find themselves always needing to catch up, so to speak, with what others around them seem to be so confidently thinking, saying, and doing. 

Now, all disciples of Jesus, can and should have sure faith and calm confidence in His teaching in Mother Church:

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you.   Not as the world gives do I give it to you.  Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid;

and that faith and confidence should, in turn, lead them to the clear awareness and firm conviction that only those approved by God, who love Jesus and obey His teaching, will be finally found and accepted as truly good, because goodness necessarily involves godliness, and men become such, not by safely following popular opinion and gaining worldly acceptance, nor even by striking out and winning worldly acclaim for themselves, but by the gift of God’s grace leading them, first of all, to a measure of love for and delight in the Person of Jesus, and then gradually forming them into an ever deeper and more authentic likeness of Him – ultimately their own divinely intended and unique likeness of Him (for true love of Jesus does not smother but enhances and confirms human personality) through persevering obedience to, and, if necessary, patient suffering for, His teaching.

My peace I give to you.   Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

So, the first thing to be aware of and put into practice is the fact that those words of Jesus tell us that we will most certainly have times when we have to fight for peace … not fight against others but against ourselves, our own faithlessness and weakness.   Jesus gives us peace, we have to be prepared to fight to keep a firm grip on His gift!

Yet, how can those others, who don't acknowledge God or profess any faith, still seem at times to be so nice, so pleasant, and sometimes even so ‘good’?

In order to understand this apparent dilemma we must remember those other words of our Lord in today’s Gospel reading:

Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words; yet the word you hear is not Mine but that of the Father who sent Me.

To our eyes, those unbelievers who disturb us do not always appear to love evil; and if we have friendly acquaintances among them, we may be inclined to say that they generally seem to want what is good; and we can even find ourselves, at times, thinking them to be better than us. Nevertheless, those who do not accept Jesus' teaching do not love Him, and cannot love the Father, and consequently can be far different from what appears to our earthly eyes and weak spiritual understanding:

The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)

You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for that which is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.  (Luke 16:15)

Ultimately, when confronted with Jesus and His Truth, the Truth He received from the Father Who is God and Lord of all creation, they -- as unbelievers -- prefer themselves and their own thoughts.  They love themselves to such an extent that they are not only content, but even prefer, to follow their own idea of a good life rather than embrace Jesus' teaching.  Indeed, they can have such a low idea of God that they imagine themselves to be in no need whatsoever of a Saviour, considering themselves ready to meet God -- if indeed He does exist -- standing up proudly in His presence, head held high and face to face!  Yes, they are proud: not, indeed, manifestly before us in their observable behaviour, but before God in the hidden depths of their heart’s desires, and in the secret recesses of their minds and the hidden folds of their purposes, where they can be subject to pride in its most insidious and deadly form.  Murderers and rapists, thieves and muggers can be, relatively easily, brought to see the evil of their ways, because such actions are patently ugly and inadmissible; but how difficult is it for non-religious people who see themselves as nice and good-living to accept and appreciate that they are in any need of a Saviour before God!   The Scriptures and Our Lord, however, have no doubt about the situation of mankind without a Saviour:

            No one is good but God alone!  (Mark 18:19)

Nevertheless, on the human level the fact still remains, and we can still at times wonder, how irreligious people and indeed even evil people, can seem, at times, to be both charming and attractive.

For the answer to this, we must continue to ponder Our Lord's words, for we have much more to learn from Him that may seem strange to us if our patterns of thought have been over-influenced and mis-formed by commonly held opinions rather than Christian teaching.

Whoever loves Me will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our dwelling with him. 

Notice that pronoun "My".  Today, people are very familiar with the supreme Christian prayer, taught by Jesus Himself, which goes: "Our Father, who art in heaven..."   Many call that prayer the "Our Father", but that is not accurate enough, it should be called "The Lord's Prayer" because it was a prayer given by Jesus to His disciples, not to anyone and everyone.   God does indeed love all His creation because He created and sustains it; and mankind -- the culmination of His creation -- is especially loved by God: they alone being made in His likeness.  Now, it is just there that we come across the reason why we can, at times, find certain non-religious people so puzzlingly attractive: it is because we (as practicing Christians and Catholics) are able to see in them aspects of the rich endowment and subtle beauty of God’s crowning creation; and, indeed, the closer we ourselves are drawn to God the more such people can move us, at times, to appreciate what is before us, while also – alas – at the same time sorrowfully regretting what might have been.

Of those disciples who learn to love and obey His teaching, we are told that Jesus said,

My Father will love them.

Now, the Father loves such disciples because of their love for His only begotten, well-beloved Son, He loves them for Jesus’ sake, as His children in Jesus.  And because of Jesus, the Father endows such disciples with a new and supernatural creation-beauty: a beauty given them as members of the Body of the Risen Christ sharing, even here on earth, in something of His Resurrection beauty and glory.  Now, there is a world of difference between God's love for creation, between God’s love for mankind as the crown and culmination of natural creation, and the Father's love for His supernatural children, born of the Spirit, in Jesus His only-begotten and uniquely-beloved Son.

People of God: we can only hope to experience God in this new way, as our heavenly Father, if we prove our love for Jesus by obeying Him.  Again, such an experience is not something we can grasp or achieve for ourselves, nor is it automatically given to all -- so to speak – ‘signed-up members of Jesus’ club’; it is a Personal gift from God the Father of Jesus, and it is given, as He wills, to those whose love and obedience binds them, by the Spirit, into an ever deeper longing and loving search for Jesus.  Listen again to Our Lord's words:

Whoever loves Me will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our dwelling with him. 

The one who lovingly obeys Jesus, Jesus' Father will love; and not only will Jesus' Father love him, but both He and Jesus will:

Come to him and make Our dwelling with him.

My dear people, our God is not cheap:  His love is the supreme treasure of our lives, His greatest blessing and most gracious Gift; for when the Father and Son come to us, they bring also with them the Holy Spirit to be our very own Advocate, Counsellor, and Guide:

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you everything and will remind you of all that I told you.

When He, the Spirit of Jesus, is present as divine Gift in our lives, guiding, comforting, strengthening, delighting, and inspiring us for Jesus' sake, then, indeed, we can begin to truly experience God’s presence to us, here and now, as the heavenly Father's love, as Jesus' companionship, and as the Spirit's own deep comfort and sure strength, calm peace and all-embracing joy.

Finally, Jesus goes on to say with clear authority that His ways are not like the ways of this world:

Not as the world gives do I give peace to you.

St. Paul, too, made this abundantly clear to his converts in Corinth:

The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight.    (1 Corinthians 3:19)

As you heard in the first reading, the Christians at Antioch were troubled when they allowed the teaching of unauthorized preachers to influence them in their practice of the faith:

We (the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem) have heard that some of our number who went out without any mandate from us have upset you with their teachings, and disturbed your peace of mind.

That was, and still is, quite wrong, because it is the last thing Jesus wants for His disciples:

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give it to you.   Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

In order to experience the Easter fulfilment which Jesus has won for us, we have to allow the love of the Father, the teaching of Jesus, and the guidance and comfort of the Holy Spirit, to enlighten and begin to rule our whole life, as we heard in the second reading today:

The (holy) city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb.

People of God, you are called, destined, to become full-citizens of God’s heavenly kingdom; do not therefore look over-much at the world around you -- the world you are leaving behind -- but as one hymn puts it, "Walk, walk, in the light of the Lord", doing your very best to walk ever forward with a confidently firm step, a steadfast heart, and in the Spirit of pure Easter joy.