Sunday Reflection_The Ascension (2017)

In the second reading in today’s Mass St Paul writes to the Ephesians: May he (Jesus) enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit and how infinitely great is the power that he has exercised for us believers. Traditionally this is a day to celebrate and reflect on the power and the glory that Christ claims as He ascends into heaven. From there He rules all of creation, angelic spirits as well as worldly humans. His suffering is put behind Him and His seeming failure during his earthly life is turned into eternal victory. It is a day of great joy.

However I would like to focus on two other aspects of this mystery. The first is the courage that Jesus showed in choosing to leave his apostles. They hardly seemed ready for the task that He was about to give them. Matthew says that even on that occasion some doubted. And Luke tells us that they still had a very earthly idea of the Kingdom of God, asking Him if He was now going to establish the Kingdom. They seemed not to understand what He had been telling them for three years. He knew from their experience during the Passion that they were not particularly courageous. And yet He chose to leave them.

However, He did promise that He would be with them until the end of time and that the Holy Spirit would come upon them and transform them. He had to trust that they would come to understand what He was about in time and they would be strengthened by the Holy Spirit. He did not stay behind to make sure “they got it right”; He trusted that they would bring His message to the ends of the world. And they did.

Jesus still has the same trust in us. I have been teaching seminarians for over fifty years. So often I would think: they really are not ready to be ordained and to carry on the mission of Christ. They still need a bit more education – a bit more formation. Can we really trust them to “get it right”? But we ordain them and then we recognise the truth of what Jesus said: He would be with them, and the Holy Spirit would give them wisdom we could never communicate in our lectures. They became committed apostles and have taken the Gospel to the ends of the world. Jesus had to “let go” of the disciples and we had to “let go” of the seminarians, trusting that God would do what we could not. I often wonder if parents at times must feel the same way. Do they too have to at some point let their children go and trust that Jesus and the Holy Spirit will be with them, continuing to form them into devoted followers of Christ?

Another aspect of the Ascension is the hope that is given to us. I was taught this by a Sister many years ago. I had been her confessor and spiritual director for many years when she first joined the Convent. At one point she went to Washington, D.C., to train to be a nurse so that she could go to the missions. The year she finished her training she was diagnosed with “galloping multiple sclerosis”. As a nurse she knew what that meant – that by 30 she would need “sticks” to walk, by 35 a wheel chair, by 40 she would be confined to bed, and would probably be dead by 45. It was a huge disappointment – she had so wanted to be a missionary. But as time passed she realized that God had given her a different mission to carry out than the one she had hoped for – it was to be present to the Sisters who would come and talk with her. There was always a welcoming smile on her face. Two weeks before she died I visited her. She said to me: “Larry, do you know what is the first thing I am going to do when I get to heaven?” I said: “No, Chris; what is it?” She said: “I am going to run!” She had been a marvellous athlete and loved sports. For the last fifteen years of her life she was not able to walk, let alone run. But she reminded me that we believe in the resurrection of the body; we will have our bodies in heaven. We don’t know how to explain or describe it, but it is a mystery we believe. The Ascension of Christ is a witness to the truth of it. And so since Chris’s death, resurrection, and ascension this mystery has always been a very special sign of hope for me. As is often said about life after death: “the best is yet to come”.