The Solemnity of the Ascension, Sunday, May 21, 2023

Matthew 28, 16-20

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

In this region of the country the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord into heaven is celebrated, by order of the local bishops, on the seventh Sunday of Easter rather than on the Thursday before, the traditional day for it.

St. Luke tells us specifically that the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven from a location near Bethany.  Traditionally, he is thought to have ascended from a mountain there, though Luke does not indicate this.  In the Acts of the Apostles 1, 12, Luke does identify this mountain as the Mount of Olives.  The last few verses of St. Matthew’s Gospel do place the Lord on a mountain and speaking words which sound very much like a farewell, but Matthew does not tell us he ascended from that mountain, which, in any case was in Galilee, not Judea, as was Bethany.  It would seem odd and perhaps not fitting, then, to use Matthew 28, 16-20 as the Gospel Reading for this Feast.  However, in the words the Lord speaks in these verses he gives his Apostles, and all his faithful, a final command: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”  Having taught his disciples his commandments and formed them according to his will, he sends them out as his instruments through whom he works for the salvation of the world.  

We are all called to engage in this work of salvation and we do so not in the same identical way.  For instance, not all the Apostles wrote Gospels.  Not all the Apostles went to foreign lands.  Each did his own work according to his particular calling.  And that is true for us as well.  Not all the faithful are called to work overseas as missionaries.  Not all are called to work in organized religious communities, not all are called to be priests or religious.  But each of us is called to spread the Faith by the means God gives us, whether through active work in the world, through raising good Christian children, through prayer, through donations to missionary groups, and in other ways.  Even confined to our houses or beds we can make sacrifices and pray.  

We do not need to worry that our efforts, whatever they are, fall short, for we do not work on our own.  The Lord himself works with us and through us.  How do we know this? Because the one who can neither deceive nor be deceived tells us, “I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  He is not watching us from a distance or hovering over us in the sky.  He is within us through his grace and finishes the work we start, and perfects the work we cannot.  We know that he can do this too because he has said, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  That is, by his Father.

The Lord departs from this world so that we will not “cling” to him and so will go into the world to carry out his command, but still he clings to us through grace.  He will always help us and console us.  And, at the end of the age, he will return for us.