Seeing Things as They Really Are

Pastor’s Column

The Ascension of the Lord

May 24, 2020

“It is not for you to know the times or the seasons

that the Father has established by his own authority.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”

From Acts 1:1-11

If only we could allow the Holy Spirit to guide us into seeing things in our lives as they really are! How vital it is for us to get beyond the illusions we prefer or a life lived only on the surface of reality. There are so many mysteries our Lord wishes to share with us if we are open to seeing them – in our personal lives, in the world around us, and in the world to come (where we are rapidly headed!). What we need is God’s perspective.

Even as Christ ascends into heaven, the disciples continue to ask the wrong questions. They still don’t get it! Incredibly, they still are expecting Jesus to be an earthly ruler in Israel. We, too, are curious about many things that really are not necessary for us to know right now, such as: when is the end of the world? How will I die? How many are in heaven or hell? What does the future hold for my family or my country? For Jesus these kinds of questions are always the wrong ones! Notice he does not satisfy the disciples’ curiosity: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has established.”

Next, we find the disciples standing around, looking up into heaven, watching Jesus disappear into the sky. But not for long! Two angels appear and basically tell them to quit gazing and get going! They have been entrusted with a mission – to be Christ in this world and share the good news! The lesson for us is clear. Christ does not always answer our questions about why we suffer or what the future holds. He will answer all of this in the future. Instead, he has given you a vital mission, one that only you can perform.

What is this great mission Christ has entrusted to you? Our mission will always be found in the commitments we have made: in our work, our school, our family, our children, our parents, our church; in the strangers and the poor we meet, in the demands of the gospel; how I shop, what I buy, what I say about others; my honesty and integrity; my concern about the person God has placed in my path today; my acceptance of my daily cross. These are the questions the Holy Spirit will answer for us whenever we ask, throughout the day, because being Christ in your small corner of the world is the mission that He has entrusted to you. No one else can do this but you. Our role is vital, and this is why it is important to ask the Holy Spirit daily to allow us to see things as they really are – in our lives, in the world, and in the world to come – from God’s perspective, and not just my own. Then my mission and how I must live my life will become clear.

Father Gary

Reflections from Scott Hahn

The Good News: Scott Hahn Reflects on the Ascension of the Lord

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The Ascension, Fresken von Gebhard Fugel, 1893-1894

Readings:
Acts 1:1–11
Psalm 47:2–3, 6–7, 8–9
Ephesians 1:17–23
Matthew 28:16–20

(In dioceses where Ascension is celebrated on Thursday, see also the reflection for the Seventh Sunday of Easter.)

In today’s First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke gives the surprising news that there is more of the story to be told. The story did not end with the empty tomb, or with Jesus’ appearances to the Apostles over the course of forty days. Jesus’ saving work will have a liturgical consummation. He is the great high priest, and He has still to ascend to the heavenly Jerusalem, there to celebrate the feast in the true Holy of Holies.

The truth of this feast shines forth from the Letter to the Hebrews, where we read of the great high priest’s passing through the heavens, the sinless intercessor’s sacrifice on our behalf (see Hebrews 4:14–15).

Indeed, His intercession will lead to the Holy Spirit’s descent in fire upon the Church. Luke spells out that promise in the First Reading for the feast of the Ascension: “in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5). The Ascension is the preliminary feast that directs the Church’s attention forward to Pentecost. On that day, salvation will be complete; for salvation is not simply expiation for sins (that would be wonder enough), but it is something even greater than that. Expiation is itself a necessary precondition of our adoption as God’s children. To live that divine life we must receive the Holy Spirit. To receive the Holy Spirit we must be purified through Baptism.

The Responsorial Psalm presents the Ascension in terms familiar from the worship of the Jerusalem Temple in the days of King Solomon: “God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord” (Psalm 47). The priest-king takes his place at the head of the people, ruling over the nations, establishing peace.

The Epistle strikes a distinctively Paschal note. In the early Church, as today, Easter was the normal time for the baptism of adult converts. The sacrament was often called “illumination” or “enlightenment” because of the light that came with God’s saving grace (see, for example, Hebrews 10:32). Saint Paul, in his Letter to the Ephesians, speaks in terms of glory that leads to greater glories still, as Ascension leads to Pentecost: “May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,” he writes, as he looks to the divinization of the believers. Their “hope” is “his inheritance among the holy ones,” the saints who have been adopted into God’s family and now rule with Him at the Father’s right hand.

This is the “good news” the Apostles are commissioned to spread—to the whole world, to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem—at the Ascension. It’s the good news we must spread today.