JESUS CHRIST GOES UP IN GLORY
Six weeks have been completed after the Easter celebration and on this weekend we celebrate the feast of Ascension of the Lord and the last Sunday of the Easter season. The Ascension of Jesus is an integral part our faith journey. St. Paul says, through the ascension of Christ, our hearts are enlightened and we come to share in the riches of his glory and inherit his power if we believe.
The Feast of the Ascension of our Lord is a commemoration and a promise. It is first of all, a commemoration. Christ really rose from the dead. Christ really ascended into heaven. Forty days after his resurrection, our Lord disappeared visibly from this earth and physically, geographically, historically went to heaven.
The Ascension of our Lord is also a promise. It is a promise because all who were born, shall die, shall rise from the dead and, we too will be assumed into heaven. What is the promise? The promise is that provided we have followed Jesus Christ during our mortal stay here on earth, we will rise from the dead. So there is a condition involved that is to follow the way of Jesus. Our souls live on, but we too will have our rising from the dead and our being assumed by Christ ascending into heaven.
So the feast of “Ascension our Lord” is the hope of our glorification and a guarantee to meet our Lord in heaven. It is a reminder of our salvation, a reminder that our true home is in heaven. So, today, we are challenged to look beyond this world to the destiny which we are to share with Christ in heaven.
Ascension is a solemnity that sustains the hope of Christians that one day we shall be where Christ is. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that: “…Jesus Christ the head of the Church precedes us into His Father’s glorious kingdom, so that we the members of his body may live in the hope of one day being with him forever.” (665-667).
May the Glorified Lord bless you all.
Fr. Joseph Kanatt MCBS
Parish Priest
FIRST READING: (Acts 1:1-11) In my earlier work, Theophilus, I dealt with everything Jesus had done and taught from the beginning until the day he gave his instructions to the apostles he had chosen through the Holy Spirit and was taken up to heaven. He had shown himself alive to them after his Passion by many demonstrations. For forty days he had continued to appear to them and tell them about the kingdom of God. When he had been at table with them, he had told them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for what the Father had promised. ‘It is’ he had said ‘what you have heard me speak about. John baptised with water but you, not many days from now, will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’
Now having met together, they asked him, ‘Lord, has the time come? Are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel?’ He replied, “It is not for you to know times or dates that the Father had decided by his own authority but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and then you will be my witness not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria and indeed to the ends of the earth.’
As he said this he was lifted up while they looked on and a cloud took him from their sight. They were still staring into the sky when suddenly two men in white were standing near them and they said, ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky? Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go there.”
SECOND READING: (Ephesians 1:17-23) May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he 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. This you can tell from the strength of his power at work in Christ, when he used it to raise him from the dead and to make him sit at his right hand, in heaven, far above every Sovereignty, Authority, Power or Domination or any other name that can be named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come. He has put all things under his feet and made him as the ruler of everything, the head of the Church; which is his body, the fullness of him who fills the whole creation.
GOSPEL: (Matthew 28:16-20) The eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations. Baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.'
Six weeks have been completed after the Easter celebration and on this weekend we celebrate the feast of Ascension of the Lord and the last Sunday of the Easter season. The Ascension of Jesus is an integral part our faith journey. St. Paul says, through the ascension of Christ, our hearts are enlightened and we come to share in the riches of his glory and inherit his power if we believe.
The Feast of the Ascension of our Lord is a commemoration and a promise. It is first of all, a commemoration. Christ really rose from the dead. Christ really ascended into heaven. Forty days after his resurrection, our Lord disappeared visibly from this earth and physically, geographically, historically went to heaven.
The Ascension of our Lord is also a promise. It is a promise because all who were born, shall die, shall rise from the dead and, we too will be assumed into heaven. What is the promise? The promise is that provided we have followed Jesus Christ during our mortal stay here on earth, we will rise from the dead. So there is a condition involved that is to follow the way of Jesus. Our souls live on, but we too will have our rising from the dead and our being assumed by Christ ascending into heaven.
So the feast of “Ascension our Lord” is the hope of our glorification and a guarantee to meet our Lord in heaven. It is a reminder of our salvation, a reminder that our true home is in heaven. So, today, we are challenged to look beyond this world to the destiny which we are to share with Christ in heaven.
Ascension is a solemnity that sustains the hope of Christians that one day we shall be where Christ is. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that: “…Jesus Christ the head of the Church precedes us into His Father’s glorious kingdom, so that we the members of his body may live in the hope of one day being with him forever.” (665-667).
May the Glorified Lord bless you all.
Fr. Joseph Kanatt MCBS
Parish Priest
FIRST READING: (Acts 1:1-11) In my earlier work, Theophilus, I dealt with everything Jesus had done and taught from the beginning until the day he gave his instructions to the apostles he had chosen through the Holy Spirit and was taken up to heaven. He had shown himself alive to them after his Passion by many demonstrations. For forty days he had continued to appear to them and tell them about the kingdom of God. When he had been at table with them, he had told them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for what the Father had promised. ‘It is’ he had said ‘what you have heard me speak about. John baptised with water but you, not many days from now, will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’
Now having met together, they asked him, ‘Lord, has the time come? Are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel?’ He replied, “It is not for you to know times or dates that the Father had decided by his own authority but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and then you will be my witness not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria and indeed to the ends of the earth.’
As he said this he was lifted up while they looked on and a cloud took him from their sight. They were still staring into the sky when suddenly two men in white were standing near them and they said, ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky? Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go there.”
SECOND READING: (Ephesians 1:17-23) May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he 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. This you can tell from the strength of his power at work in Christ, when he used it to raise him from the dead and to make him sit at his right hand, in heaven, far above every Sovereignty, Authority, Power or Domination or any other name that can be named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come. He has put all things under his feet and made him as the ruler of everything, the head of the Church; which is his body, the fullness of him who fills the whole creation.
GOSPEL: (Matthew 28:16-20) The eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations. Baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.'