ASCENSION OF THE LORD – Year B
Living and Sharing our Faith
(Acts 1:1-11; Ps 47; Eph 1:17-23; Mk 16:15-20)
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CH _ _ CH: What’s missing? The answer is U R! If you are not worshipping with the faith community on Sunday, you are missing, and it is incomplete.
St. Paul closes off the second reading with a key line – we are the Church, which is the Body of Christ. So, we are the Church, gathered to worship on this feast of the Ascension and called to believe in the good news, live the good news and share that good news with the world.
In the Gospel, Jesus clearly gives us a great commission before his ascension – to go out to the whole world and proclaim the good news about him. But we must know what that good news is, and it must be good news for us, if we are to go out and proclaim it.
That is what St. Luke is trying to articulate in the first reading, as he recounts for Theophilus “all that Jesus said and did.” All that Jesus said and did is the good news, and it can be summarized in three words – the Paschal Mystery.
From the time Jesus was arrested in the garden to his death on the cross, Jesus did very little, yet he did more during that space of time to redeem the world than all his active ministry. We call that his Paschal Mystery, and that is what Jesus is inviting us to participate in by his request for us to take up our cross and follow him.
The Paschal Mystery for Jesus was six stages: his passion, death, resurrection, appearances to his disciples, ascension into heaven that we celebrate today, and the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost, the birthday of the Church we celebrate next Sunday.
That pattern is based on the six stages of the Exodus experience of Moses and the chosen people in Egypt: slavery for centuries, liberation by the Red Sea, the gift of the Ten Commandments, a desert period of 40 years learning to live one day at a time (manna in the morning, quail in the evening), finally crossing the Jordan and entry into the Promised Land.
This was also Louis’ story shared with me in my office many years ago: a drunk for years, sobriety, the 12 Step program of A.A., a dry drunk for four years chairing meetings and organizing Round-Ups but not really working the program, a stay in the hospital when he resolved to work the program and his recovery began, and now he was experiencing a sobriety that was joyful and free.
That six-stage pattern is also our story and it should be as Jesus asked us to follow him. We have all been hurt (our passion), we have all suffered loss (our deaths) but we are still here – many as survivors (our resurrection). But God wants thrivers, not survivors, so we must move on to grieving our losses (the appearances for us). That is what Jesus taught his disciples when he appeared to them for forty days – to mourn and grieve his loss, as they could not have him back as he was before – he had risen to a new life he wanted to share with us through the gift of his Spirit. That is why he told Mary Magdalene not to cling to him when he appeared to her in the garden. She had to have faith, let him ascend, and they would receive his spirit to be with them in a new way – which happened at Pentecost.
We must do the same – mourn and grieve our losses and give our loved ones back to God so we can receive their spirit to be with us in a new way, and we won’t miss them as much anymore.
The ascension becomes for us the need to forgive from the heart anyone who has hurt us in any way. We can do that best by sharing our feelings of hurt with them with love, letting go of any desire for revenge or punishment. We need to let all our anger, resentment and bitterness ascend to the Father, so we can receive God’s spirit of forgiveness, let go and move on in our lives with peace and joy (our Pentecost).
In the gospel, Jesus gives us signs that will accompany us as his disciples, believing him and living his way: casting out demons, picking up snakes, drinking deadly poison, speaking a new language and healing the sick.
Velma is an example of this new life. Severely verbally abused by her ex-partner over the phone, she decided to forgive him by living Matthew 18:15 in which Jesus teaches us to forgive, not by fighting or fleeing or freezing, but by forgiving. As a way of doing that, she wrote him a letter sharing her hurt feelings without any desire for revenge. She also drove out to where he lived with her daughter to deliver the letter to him. When he read it, he simply stood there, said “okay” and returned to his meeting. Her daughter exclaimed, “Mom,” for she had never seen her mother and father relating that way – it was always a fight. Something had changed and she noticed it.
Velma was living today’s gospel: when she decided to forgive her abuser, she cast out the demon of anger. When she wrote that letter with love, she picked up a snake and it did not hurt her. When she delivered that letter to her abuser, she drank deadly poison and it did not harm her. And when she expressed her hurt with love in the letter trying to forgive him, she was speaking the new language of love, and her daughter noticed. And years later, when he was dying of cancer, she was the one who was there to care for him, as he had alienated himself from his family. Velma had become a living gospel.
The Eucharist is our family meal at which Jesus is very present – through Word and Sacrament. What is even more striking than the transformation of humble gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus, is that we who are receive are transformed into his Body, the Church, the people of God.
So, let us pray for the ability to believe in the good news, live the good news in our lives, and share that good news with others. May our celebration empower us to live the Paschal Mystery and proclaim that Good News to a world that desperately needs to hear it.
