Seventh Sunday of Easter

The Ascension of the Lord

May 16, 2021

“Galileos, what are you doing standing there looking at the sky? The same Jesus who has been taken from among you and taken to heaven, will return as you have seen him leave ”.

And “he put everything under his feet,” and gave it to the Church, as Head, above all.

“Go to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to all creation.”

Readings

First reading

Reading of the Acts of the Apostles 1, 1-11

In my first book, dear Theophilus, I wrote about everything that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day he was taken to heaven, after having given instructions to the apostles he had chosen, moved by the Holy Spirit. And ascended to heaven. He introduced himself to them after his passion, giving them numerous proofs that he was alive, appearing to them for forty days, speaking of the kingdom of God.
Once they were eating together, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but rather: “Wait for the promise of the Father to be fulfilled, which you have heard me speak about, because John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit within not many days ”.
Those who had gathered, asked him, saying:
“Lord, is this now when you are going to restore the kingdom of Israel?”
Told them:
“It is not up to you to know the times and moments that the Father has established with his own authority; instead you will receive the strength of the Holy Spirit who is going to come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria and ‘to the ends of the world’ ”.
That said, in their sight, he was lifted up into the sky, until a cloud took him out of sight. When they were staring at the sky, as he was leaving, two men dressed in white appeared to them, who said to them:
“Galileos, what are you doing standing there looking at the sky? The same Jesus who has been taken from among you and taken to heaven, will return as you have seen him leave ”.

Psalm

Ps. 46, 2-3. 6-7. 8-9

God ascends with acclamations; the Lord, to the sound of trumpets.

All peoples clap their hands, acclaim God with shouts of joy;
for the Lord is sublime and terrible, emperor of all the earth. R.

God ascends with acclamations; the Lord, to the sound of trumpets;
play for God, play; play for our King, play. R.

Because God is the king of the world; play masterfully.
God reigns over the nations, God sits on his sacred throne. R.

Second lecture

A reading from the letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to Ephesians 1, 17-23

Brothers:
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him, and enlighten the eyes of your heart so that they understand what is the hope to which he calls you, what is the wealth of glory that he gives. in inheritance to the saints, and what is the extraordinary greatness of his power for us believers, according to the efficacy of his mighty strength, which he displayed in Christ, raising him from the dead and sitting him at his right hand in heaven, above all principality, power, strength and domination, and above all known names, not only in this world, but in the future.
And “he put everything under his feet,” and gave it to the Church, as Head, above all. She is his body, fullness of which fills everything in everyone.

Gospel

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark 16: 15-20

At that time, Jesus appeared to the eleven and said:
“Go to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to all creation.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.
Those who believe will be accompanied by these signs: they will cast out demons in my name, they will speak new languages, they will pick up snakes in their hands and, if they drink a deadly poison, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will be healed ”.
After speaking to them, the Lord Jesus was taken up to heaven and sat at the right hand of God.
They went to preach the Gospel everywhere, and the Lord cooperated by confirming the word with the accompanying signs.

Commentary

We celebrate, almost at the end of the Easter season, the solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord into heaven. Once again, Jesus surprises his Apostles with an unusual, unexpected event, but loaded with meaning for them. As on so many occasions, they are overcome by what is happening and will have to assimilate it little by little, with the help of the Holy Spirit. That happened? Attested by the Gospels and by the book of the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that Jesus, after having risen from the dead, after having appeared on different occasions and circumstances to the closest group of disciples, one day brought them together again and, saying goodbye to them, he ascended to the heavens until he disappeared from their sight.

We must first pay attention to the event itself and then also to the accompanying message. The ascension of Jesus to heaven is the fact in itself that culminates his entire course on earth from the moment of his incarnation and birth, passing through his hidden life in Nazareth and his public life at the service of the Kingdom, and which concluded with his passion, death and resurrection. With the ascension the human and the divine are definitely united for all eternity; God the Father glorifies his Son made man and, at the same time, his humanity is incorporated into the glory of the eternal God. In the humanity of Christ glorified at the right hand of the Father, our own humanity is also represented; Christ, with his incarnation has united in a certain way with the whole human race, and with his glorification he teaches us all that our fullness is in the eternity of the good God the Father who created us out of love and who awaits us at the end of our lives. days.

Certainly our stay on this earth has a time limit, just as Jesus’ did. But God did not create us for death but for life, as eternal beings, citizens of heaven. Christ has gone ahead to prepare a place for us, to show us the way, to illuminate our lives with a new hope, to show us the meaning of human existence.

In this sense, what Saint Paul said to the Ephesians, each one of us is told today … may the Lord grant us the necessary wisdom to understand this, that he enlightens the eyes of our hearts to understand what hope is to the who has called us from all eternity, since he thought of us and created us; may he prepare us to welcome the wealth of glory that he will give us as an inheritance to the disciples of his Son, from “the extraordinary greatness of his power for us believers, according to the efficacy of his mighty strength, which he displayed in Christ.” God the Father wanted to constitute his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, Head of the new humanity, to whom everything is subject. He is also the head of the Church that is his Body and that we are the baptized, and that as such we participate in its glorification, in the hope of one day reaching its fullness.

This event truly invites us to look to heaven and to the future, placing all our trust in the glorious Christ. But such a look cannot disconnect us from the earth and the present, but quite the opposite, because while that moment arrives, Jesus himself has left us a great task. We find it in the message that accompanies the event. Jesus did not just say goodbye to his disciples, but he did so by entrusting them with the continuation of his mission: “Go to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. Those who believe will be accompanied by these signs: they will cast out demons in my name, they will speak new languages, they will pick up snakes in their hands and, if they drink a deadly poison, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will be healed ”.

So, Jesus leaves, but at the same time he stays, promising the disciples the gift of his Holy Spirit and the return at the end of time. Christ inaugurates the time of the Church, in which we live now, a time in which he is in our midst in a new and different way, but not for that less real and effective. He continues to be the main agent of the evangelization of peoples through the action of his Holy Spirit in all of us who claim to be his missionary disciples.

In our here and now, Christ himself urges us to evangelize, first of all by living his Gospel coherently, to announce it at the same time with the testimony of his own life and, of course, with the word; He urges us to illuminate the lies and contradictions of our world, to dilute the deceptions in which our societies are shipwrecked, to commit ourselves as He did in transforming our world into a more human world, that is, more Christian, just as he did. God dreams and all of us who believe in Him dream of it. A tremendous task that continues unfinished in the history of each people through the presence of Christ in his Church. Let us feel humbly proud to be part of it and let ourselves be propelled by its Spirit towards new paths and challenges in emerging realities. Let us evangelize without fear, He has promised us his power and his presence.

Prayer