The Ascension of the Lord, Yr A

Collect

Gladden us with holy joys, almighty God, and make us rejoice with devout thanksgiving, for the Ascension of Christ your Son is our exaltation, and, where the Head has gone before in glory, the Body is called to follow in hope. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Reflection

For this year celebration of the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, the Church presents us with the final verses of Matthew’s Gospel. In their encounter with the Risen Christ—whom they had not yet fully grasped—some believed and fell down before Jesus as if trying to hold him fixed in one place so as not to lose him, while others doubted, perhaps because the cynicism and pessimism resulting from the trauma and defeat of the Cross still marked them; their hearts had not yet found peace. And this is not so strange, after all because, even in daily life, we know that, faced with the same news or experience, each person reacts in a different and unique way.

Yet, whether those who believed so strongly that they wanted to keep him for themselves, or those who were more hesitant but still open to the experience, to all Jesus gives three commands (responsibilities or tasks): “go,” “make disciples,” and “baptise them.” These three imperatives essentially form the whole mission of the Church and, because they belong to the whole Church, they are also our tasks—whether we tend to keep Jesus to ourselves or at times struggle and wrestle with our faith.

First: “go,” that is, do not remain here gathered around me, but go out and seek your brothers and sisters. Despite all your personal difficulties, you are still called to share with them the experience of a personal encounter with Christ—an experience that is sometimes powerful and at other times quieter than silence, except for that promise which echoes in our ears and to which we cling.

Second: “make disciples,” that is, not simply to get to know people wherever you go or to form friendships on a purely human level, but to build relationships that go deeper. Friendships in which, with gentleness and intimacy, you share your own relationship with Jesus—not to bind others to yourselves as if they were followers or dependents, nor simply to increase numbers, but because you are convinced that friendship with Jesus is the most beautiful reality in your life, and you desire that your friends too may become his friends.

Finally: “baptise them.” In practice, we often leave this task to priests. However, the responsibility of Baptism—of leading someone towards it—does not belong only to the priest. First and foremost, it belongs to parents, godparents, catechists, Christian teachers, grandparents with their grandchildren. You received this mission when you were entrusted with the light of the candle lit from the Paschal flame: to keep it alive, strong, and never extinguished. Each time we take a step in this direction, we are not baptising again—that cannot be—but we are keeping alive the light of Christ within them.

Prayer

Lord, wherever we may be in our journey of faith, what matters most is that we keep our ears open so that the echo of your final words may reach us and sink into our hearts: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20).

Strengthen us, so that we may go, make disciples, and baptise—leading others to encounter your grace—so that their lives may be touched, and they too may begin to hear these words and make them their certainty: that you are with us, always and everywhere, to the end of time.