Father Chas Canoy
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What does the Ascension mean for us? Discover how Jesus brings our humanity into heaven and calls us to live boldly through the power of the Holy Spirit.
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All right, the Ascension of the Lord. What’s the Ascension? The Catechism states that the Ascension marks the definitive entrance of Jesus’s humanity into heaven. So Jesus takes something with him back into the inner life of the Trinity, our humanity, right? Us.
So Jesus in his Ascension has not abandoned humanity. He brings our humanity with him into divine glory, right? And as Jesus promised us, I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself.
That’s the destiny that God has for us. How awesome is that, right? The best is yet to come for all of us. When did the Ascension of our Lord occur? How many days after Easter? The resurrected Jesus had spent those 40 days with his disciples, much to their shock and disbelief that he’s alive, right? To prove that it was really him in the flesh and not some ghost, he said, hey, come and put your hands on my side.
See that it’s really me, that it’s bodily me. And even though you deserted me in my hour of need, I forgive you. This is all part of the divine plan.
And now that divine plan to bring about the kingdom of God continues. And guess what? It includes you. You’re going to go bring the good news of the salvation of humanity and the transformative power of my resurrection to all the nations of the world.
Now you can imagine how the apostles may have felt wholly inadequate for such a mission. But there’s a huge difference this time. They had just witnessed that the master, their master was victorious over suffering and death.
Here he was before them alive and well. And what does Jesus tell them before he ascends into heaven? He says, all power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.
He imparts his divine authority upon his apostles and tells them to await the power of God, the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit allowed the presence of Jesus to be multiplied the world over. And members of the body of Christ, you all, would give witness to the gospel.
And yes, the Holy Spirit, just like Ezekiel is about to experience, is given to us at baptism and confirmation. But what is objectively given to us in those sacraments must be subjectively received. In other words, you have to open the gift.
The way we unleash that power, the way we open the gift of the Holy Spirit given to us is number one, by repenting from putting ourselves and the things of this world above God. Number two, wholly surrendering our lives to Jesus’s power and love. And then number three, dedicating our lives to fostering the truth, the goodness, the beauty, the salvation that God wants for humanity.
When we can say, bring it on to all of that, that’s when God can use us to set the world on fire.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)