Verbum Dei UK

Acts 1:1-11 ;Ephesians 1:17-23 ;Matthew 28:16-20

MEDITATION:

This Sunday is about the Ascension of Jesus - when he took the bus back home to Heaven!. (Ascension is still celebrated on the Thursday of the 6th week of Easter in Italy, France etc.. In Ireland, England and Spain it is celebrated on the 7^th Sunday of Easter).

But, of course, Christ is also still with us -even more so-, because He's within our hearts! We're all called to ascend with him. The Body can follow the head. It'll be our ascension too -if we'll go. The Trinity don't impose, but call, but do we answer the call well or do we try to cling on to things in the world? The Trinity have given many gifts to us, and they want us to put them to good use, but let's not become dependant and have to keep clinging on. The most challenging thing for me is to be humble… humble enough to love and forgive and love more, even if it brings 'crosses'. It's a central Christian truth: We go up when we're willing to go down!

 

The apostles are criticized for staring up at the sky when Jesus had just asked them to go and tell others the Good News (Matthew 28:11 ). There is a time for personal meditation and reading as Jesus says: "Go into your private room to pray" (Matthew 6:6 ), but there's also a time for being out doing something useful for others (like talking!). According to Pope John-Paul II in 2004, Ascension is also 'world day of moral communication.' Our patroness of missionaries (Therése of Lisieux) was a faithful contemplative nun (Carmelite), yet she has communicated well to us through her writing. I'm a priest preparing a homily, someone else is plowing a field and a mother may be preparing the dinner for her kids. We all have a role to play. We all have different roles, but the great thing about Christ is that we all go together in him. Where the head goes, the body follows! 

The Church has many different communities with different jobs to do, but we all go together in Christ. It's as if the Spirit were like a glue holding a model work of art together! Consecrated people (Priests and Nuns etc.) have certain jobs to do, but the many jobs done by the laity, are just as important (if not more so!). It's not for us to judge anyone, and it's not for anyone of you to judge me either! But it's good to give advice and to make propositions to each other. We can help each other grow. Also that's not so that one copy another. It's Jesus and Mary that each one tries in some way to copy, and there's a unity in our diversity. We're all parts of the Body of Christ.

What I've got to do is to seek what God wants Dara to do, and seek it anew every day -because the Trinity are very active! And we're all affected by doubts as it says before the Ascension in the Gospel of Mathew: 'The eleven disciples went to the mountain and when they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted' (Matthew 28:16-17 ). But God can overcome our doubts!

A healthy spiritual life will guide us well through our few years of physical life. At least let's 'go to the mountain' (Matthew 28:16 ). Eternal Life is a gift that the Trinity long to give us, but they need our acceptance, and there is opposition to overcome. The main opposition is our own mundane selfishness! I want to be free of the world's ambition for riches, prestige, power and selfish pleasures. It sounds challenging, but Jesus says "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few" (Matthew 7:13-14 ). If we're carrying our fifty big luggage bags of worldly riches, then the narrow door isn't for us! Mankind puts so much effort into things with a 'sell-by date'. It makes me think of the elderly rich American woman who wanted to be buried in her 'Chevrolet'!

The scroll known as the 'letter of Diognetius' written in the ancient world was about that 'new' group called 'Christians': 'Their behavior is like that of transients. They take their full part as citicens but they submit to abuse as if they were aliens. They obey the prescribed laws but in their own private lives they transcend the laws. They show love to all men even though men persecute them. They are misunderstood and condemned yet by suffering death they are quickened into Life. They are poor yet making many rich... lacking all things yet 'having all things in abundance'! They are dis-honoured yet made glorious in their very dis-honour. They repay calumny with a blessing and repay abuse with courtesy. For the good they do they are given strikes as evildoers. Of all their ill-wishers there is not one who can produce good 'grounds' for their hostility. The Christians inhabit the world but they're not 'part' of the world.'. I think that the Ascension of Jesus has led the way for many to follow!

With regard to following Jesus on a trip to Heaven, remember that the reason for our Eucharistic hosts at mass being made of unleavened bread, is because that was the kind of bread made by the Jews that could be made quickly enough to bring with them on their flight from slavery in Egypt (Exodus).  Thereafter they had what they called a 'feast of unleavened bread' every year during which it was eaten with the sacrificed lamb (wich now for us is Jesus himself). The Book of Deuteronomy says this: 'You shall not eat leavened bread with the lamb. For seven days you shall eat with it only unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, that you may remember as long as you live the day of your departure from the land of Egypt; for in frightened haste you left the land of Egypt' (Deuter 16:3). The Exodus of the Old Testament is just a prologue of the supreme flight to the supreme promised land - which is described as the physical Ascension of Jesus this Sunday. Therefore, as we now eat (comulgate) at mass the communion (Eucharist) of the Last Supper, we can remind ourselves of the fact that we're on a journey passing through these few years on Earth. Reminding ourselves of that, may influence our plans to make good use of our brief lifetime and to avoid mundane riches, honours and pleasures that would hold us back.

As we think of the Ascension of Jesus, let's remember the advice of St Paul: 'If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth... When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory' (Colosians 3:1-4). We can all be born to Eternal Life! The lads are asked today not to stay with their heads staring up, and I think that I'm also asked not to stay with my head stuck up! If only we would be humble, then we would ascend with Christ!

We remember the way that Jesus ascended back to heaven but also the fact that he left us all a job to do. A leader who gets up and leaves doesn't sound like much of a leader, but the marvel of our faith is that in ascending, Christ didn't leave, but rather entered deeper into us. He took the place for which He longs: a place in our minds and hearts. That's our 'spiritual life'. Christ remains all around us. We are all now parts of Him. We are present within Him. This is what we call the 'mystical body of Christ'.

But will we open the door for him? We're all called to be his dwelling places. But He won't impose and He's not like a visitor who stays for too long. He humbly puts it in our hands. Would you invite Him to stay with you? He will if you want. When people meet you from now on, they can feel that they've come across something of God's love. They may come across 'smelly socks' too, but Christ has committed himself to keep cleaning and cleaning, untill we all 'rise' in Love, and rise to heaven with Him.

Success for us is a matter of obeying the mission that God gives. The first Christian community certainly did, fortunately for us. Jesus asks for the mission as he begins the Gospel this Sunday. It's not a universal instruction about exactly how all of us are to live, but it's a call to each individual to find out for themselves. That's what prayer is for. Like in the Gospel about the true vine (John 14:15-21 ), Christ says that if we're properly connected, then we'll bear fruit. But for what fruit do you long? In the first reading, the lads, like decent Jews, are asking Jesus if he's now going to restore the kingdom of Israel , and the reply is "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority." (Acts 1:7 ). In other words, we shouldn't be proud individuals who have decided for themselves what they want and how, but rather be attentive listeners to God. We listen to his Word made flesh and we ponder how He want's to be 'made flesh' in our lives now. There's a job there to be done. That's why the first reading has the two angels asking "Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?" (Acts 1:11 ). That's a call for us all to get active. That's not to say that 'contemplative' nuns and brothers aren't active in the way that God wants for them, but I think that the vast majority of us Christians, are called to get out and about and get our shoes dirty in the 'big bad world' (and get our wheelchairs dirty!). Of course, 'contemplation' is part of that. Prayer is necessary in order to find out what God wants us to do every day, but the criticism of the lads 'staring up to the sky' in the Gospel is a criticism of those who see prayer as a kind of 'hiding away.' Let's look up well in order to then look well at the world around us, and then get active in loving!

Dara

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