Father Jorge Miró shares with Exaudi readers his commentary on today’s Gospel, Sunday, May 12, 2024, titled “The Ascension of the Lord.”
***
Today we celebrate the ASCENSION OF THE LORD, a feast that has a deep meaning for our faith: forty days after the Resurrection he was elevated to heaven in the presence of the disciples, sitting at the right hand of the Father, until he comes in his glory to judge the living and dead.
By ascending to heaven, Jesus Christ unequivocally reveals his divinity: he returns to the place from which he had come, to God, after having accomplished his mission on earth.
Furthermore, the Ascension reveals the greatness of the vocation of every human person, called to eternal life. Christ ascends to heaven with our humanity that he assumed and that he rose from the dead.
Jesus Christ is Lord: he possesses all power in the heavens and on earth… he is Lord of the cosmos and history. He intercedes for us as a mediator who assures us of the perennial outpouring of the Spirit.
As Lord, Christ is also the head of the Church, which is her Body (cf. Eph 1:22). Raised to heaven and glorified, having thus fulfilled his mission, he remains on earth in his Church (cf. Catechism 668s).
The Ascension of the Lord marks the fulfillment of the mission of Jesus Christ on earth and the beginning of the mission of the Church as a continuator of the work of Jesus Christ: he put everything under his feet, and gave it to the Church as head, above all. She is his body.
For this reason, it is also an eminently missionary and evangelizing festival.
Jesus Christ sends the Church – he also sends you – to continue his work of salvation for all men of all times. He sends the Apostles to be his witnesses, to preach conversion and forgiveness of sins: Go to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to all creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned.
Furthermore, Jesus promises us the gift of the Holy Spirit who gives us the ability to live in trust: the apostles asked Jesus: Lord, is it now that you are going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Which is as if you and I were asking him: “Lord, is it now that you are going to solve my problems?”
And Jesus answers us as he did to the Apostles: It is not up to you to know the times or 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… to the ends of the earth.
Now the time of the Spirit will begin. Next Sunday, we celebrate Pentecost. The Spirit is the one who will do the work of the new creation. He will renew everything… If you let him.
And the Lord cooperated by confirming the word with the signs that accompanied them.
What signs? Those of the new creation that the Holy Spirit is carrying out in the one who welcomes Jesus Christ into his life and that are already announced in some way in the OT (cf. Is 11, 6-8; Ps 91,3). Signs that show the salvation that Jesus Christ brings and manifest his Lordship, his definitive victory over sin and death.
In order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, he invites you to open your heart and proclaim Jesus Christ Lord of your life, of your entire life. May there be no “corner” of your life unilluminated by the light of Christ!
And while Jesus blessed them, he separated from them, and was taken up into heaven.
Jesus blesses you, he speaks well of you. He loves you. He will never stop loving you… And he will be with you every day until the end of the world. This is the foundation of our hope: the certainty that there is nothing and no one that can separate you from the love of God, manifested in Christ Jesus.
Come Holy Spirit! (cf. Luke 11, 13).
