Behold, I am with you always ~ by Josephine Fernando

The Ascension of the Lord

Acts 1:1-11
Ps 47:2-3, 6-7, 8-9 (6)
Eph 1:17-23
Mt 28:16-20

The triumph of Our Resurrected Lord climaxes on Pentecost. However, before that, we have the Ascension. Forty days from Easter is the Ascension of Our Lord, and the tenth day from then is Pentecost (the fiftieth day after Easter).

After Easter, the Lord appears to His apostles and others by breaking of bread and by giving peace (Shalom). On June 2nd, we celebrated the Ascension, which in our diocese is transferred to the following Sunday. The Lord ascends to the throne of His Father to prepare mansions for us. However, He tells His apostles not to leave Jerusalem for He will send the Holy Spirit. This is the second greatest feast in our Church, next to Easter. However, this year all the feasts are late, for Easter was very late since it followed the Lunar calendar.

The Ascension of Our Lord is the second decade of the Glorious Mysteries when we say the Rosary. This shows the concern of Our Lord to take us home, when we finish with our earthly voyage. Therefore, He is preparing us for a permanent place in heaven.

As Father mentioned during his homily, the four steps in imparting a new skill are as follows:

1. I do, you watch.
2. I do, you help.
3. You do, I help.
4. You do, I watch.

When Our Lord ascends to Heaven, the apostles are confused and they ask the Lord whether He was going to bring back the kingdom of Israel. However, the Lord quiets them by saying, it is not their job to know about that. Then the Lord tells them about His mission of preparing a room for us in Heaven. So Jesus is stepping aside and watching what we will do.

He also told the apostles and He also tells us, that we need to be in prayer for the infilling of the Holy Spirit and moreover, that we are not alone; for He is with us even to the end of the earth. A powerful promise, to bank on the Risen Lord, the Ascended Lord and the Lord who is going to fill us with His Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

So the Lord did train His apostles. We also have the Bible to fall back on and to follow exactly what the apostles did and learned from Our Lord. However, the Lord watches each one of us, because the mission given to Christ by His Father is the mission that Our Lord passed on to His apostles and today, it is to us. Go therefore, and baptize people in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, not only in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, but to the ends of the earth. So let the mission of Our Lord be our mission too as we become filled with the Holy Spirit.


Image by e-watchman