The Apostles didn’t get it. Despite the fact Jesus told them that he was going to die and eventually ascend to the Father, they were still confused. Even in the very last moments before Jesus was to leave them, they thought he was going to restore the kingdom of Israel and become a political ruler who would reestablish the throne of David. They really didn’t get it until after the Ascension, when the Holy Spirit came and enlightened them. It’s not surprising, then, that we, too, sometimes wonder why the Son had to ascend and what it means to be seated at the right hand of the Father.

Jesus returned to the right hand of the Father, not to leave us but to lead us all the way to heaven. The great paradox is because he has ascended, he is able to remain with us in a profound new way.

If Jesus had remained on earth in his physical body, he would have been present and visible in only one place. Now he is present in his Mystical Body, the Church. He is truly present in the Scriptures, in Baptism, in Confession, and in every sacramental action of the Church. And he is really present in his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. We see him, not with our human sight, but with the eyes of faith. What we are called to do, as faithful believers, is to let the world know that the Jesus who ascended into heaven is still with us, in the Church and through the Sacraments.

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First Reading
~Acts 1:1–11~

This First Reading for this important celebration brims with wonderful mysteries of the kingdom that Jesus establishes in the Church. This passage is an important witness to the character of the forty days since Jesus’s Resurrection from the dead. Luke tells us that it was a time of instruction for the apostles, especially about the reign or kingdom of God. This suggests that part of our faith that we refer to as Sacred Tradition, which “the Church, in her doctrine, life, and worship perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes."37 (CCC 78). Jesus seems to have appeared during this period to teach these first bishops of the Church what they were to teach their flocks. Although this is speculation, we might assume that they were told where to take this message, since we know that they went all over the world proclaiming the Gospel.

We don’t simply imitate what we read or dramatize it in some way in the Sacraments; we actually receive sacramentally what the disciples received. To receive the Holy Spirit we need to prepare by retiring with Mary, the faithful women, and the Apostles to an upper room of prayer to invite a fresh anointing from the Spirit. The world won’t recognize the Spirit because it doesn’t receive the Son with obedient love. That’s why we attend this Sunday Eucharist: to receive the Son so that we might recognize the Spirit at Pentecost.

This beautiful prayer for believers from St. Paul echoes down through the centuries and resonates us today. In a sense, he is still praying it from heaven on our behalf, that we might know “the hope that belongs to his call,” “the riches of glory in his inheritance,” and “the surpassing greatness of his power.” All of this is also on display for us on this feast in the narrative about Christ’s Ascension in the First Reading. Paul will go on to explain in this same letter the dynamic by which we gain these great gifts for which he prays. At Ephesians 4:8 he quotes Psalm 68 as saying, “He ascended on high and took prisoners captive; he gave gifts to men.” He goes on to note that the “inheritance”

he mentions in this reading is won by Christ’s descent “into the lower parts of the earth” followed by his ascent “far above all the regions.” In this way, Christ embraces all things, fills all things, from the depths to the heights (4:9-10). He then tells us that this work of descending and ascending yields the whole ministry of the Church: of apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, the whole “to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (4:12). This is the marvelous inheritance that Christ bequeaths to us in his Ascension to the right hand of the Father, his call, his glory, his power, present for us in the life of faith.

Interestingly, this passage from the end of Matthew’s Gospel is not traditionally considered to be a description of the Ascension, which, as we see in the First Reading from Acts, is believed to have happened, not in Galilee, but on Mount Olivet, not far from Jerusalem where Jesus had asked the Apostles to stay until Pentecost. In Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts, the first witnesses at the tomb are told that Jesus would meet the disciples in Galilee but they appear not to go, because of their unbelief, and so Jesus appears in Jerusalem to them. But later they did go to Galilee. In John’s Gospel we see a clear description of one of these later meetings with Jesus in Galilee, where Jesus’s ministry had begun. Why does the Church give us a Gospel Reading that precedes the Ascension, instead of a report of the Ascension as we see at the end of Luke’s Gospel? Perhaps the Church wants to emphasize the commission that Jesus gives to his disciples in this episode from Galilee. In the same place that Jesus had started his own ministry, he brings his followers into that same ministry of discipling all the nations. When Jesus ascends to the right hand of the Father, he assigns to us the work he had begun. But irst, we must receive the Holy Spirit, whom the Son will send from the Father, to make this work possible.
 

MEDITATION:

RESOLUTION:

Based on this prayerful meditation, come up with one specific thing you can do this week to be a better witness to Christ in your daily life. Then ask Jesus to help you live out this resolution.