2023-05-21 08:33:29
Jesuit Father Adrien Lentiampa Shenge introduces us to meditation with the readings for the Sunday of the Ascension of the Lord of liturgical year A.
Textes: Ac 1, 1-11; Ps 46 (47), 2-3, 6-7, 8-9; Ep 1, 17-23; Mt 28, 16-20
Dear Brothers and Sisters, today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. From the readings of this Sunday’s Mass, we can retain two essential lessons. It is first of all regarding the mystery of Jesus, Son of God who, having taken on our flesh, returns to Heaven to his Father from where he will send us the Holy Spirit. Then there is the meaning of this time inaugurated by this ascension into Heaven of the Risen Christ, the time of witness.
If it is to the author of the Acts of the Apostles, in the first reading of this Sunday, that we owe the account of the ascension, of the elevation of Jesus to Heaven, it is in the second reading that we let’s get the full meaning. Indeed, in today’s Epistle, Saint Paul affirms that the Father, following having raised his only Son from death, “made him sit at his right hand in the heavens», establishing him above all. This is why the same Saint Paul can invite us to the hope to which this mystery of Jesus Christ opens who, having taken flesh, now lives at the right hand of God the Father. Since it is for eternity that Christ took on our flesh, we can rejoice in knowing that, through his ascension to the Father, it is our humanity that has joined the divine life. The ascension of Christ thus opens us to “the priceless glory of inheritancewhich we, who have been redeemed by the blood of his cross, share with Christ, for having become the object of aincomparable powerwhich his resurrection made manifest. In fact, we are now participating in the “same energy, strength, vigor“that God”implemented in Christ when he raised him from the dead“. In other words, the ascension of Christ gives us the full measure of our value as baptized, as sons in the only Son.
At the same time, the Ascension of Christ opens the time of testimony. The first reading insists on the fact that Christ who is taken up into Heaven withdraws himself from the eyes of his apostles. After the multiple manifestations of the Risen Christ to his own, the latter must now agree not to see him physically anymore. Not that they leave them orphans or in disarray. It is so that they may now experience their adoption as sons of God: in separating himself from his disciples, Christ hands over to them the power he has received from his Father, the power to make of all those whom they will meet disciples. This is why he said to them:All power has been given to me in Heaven and on earth. Come on! Make disciples of all nations: baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. And I am with you every day until the end of the world».
It is in this long line of disciples that we are invited to insert ourselves, we who have just experienced the Risen Christ during this Easter season. In our turn, we are also invited to enter into the time of witnessing, by making disciples around us: by leading others, through our lives, to live according to the commandment of love that Christ has bequeathed to us. Because to be a disciple of Christ is to feel bound to him by a very strong spiritual bond, to the point that he becomes the center of our life and of everything we do.
Let us therefore ask Christ, on this Ascension Sunday, for the grace to be intimately linked to him so that our whole life becomes witness to his presence and his saving power for the people he places on our paths.
AMEN!
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