- Each month the team working on this catechism presents you
with two texts, and we hope that with your help and cooperation
they will improve. Any suggestions you may have would be most
welcome, as would ideas on subject matter.
- We look forward to hearing from you.
Ascension: from time of mourning to the call for a mission
Gospel and Apostles Writings tell us that resurrected Jesus,
after being seen several times by his closest followers, was
taken away to heaven." As he blessed them, he parted from
them and was taken up to heaven" as Luke is writing (24,
51). The writings of the Apostles specify" As they were
looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him from their
sight. While they were looking at the sky as Jesus was going,
two messengers came and said:" Men of Galilee, why are you
standing there looking at the sky?" (AA. 1, 9-11).
The celebration of Ascension, although regarding Jesus, tells
us more about his apostles and disciples. After becoming conscious
that his death on the cross had not annihilated Jesus, his disciples
accept that he is not with them like he was before. They ought
to go into mourning a presence they benefited during all these
years as privileged witnesses of his message of life. All was
about to communicate the Good News without looking back in the
past. Instead of looking at the sky, it is on earth that the
people need them.
Signs do not drop from the sky; they are there, near to us, they
come out from the world where we are inserted. Now one has to
make known every where the message of mutual aid and solidarity,
in the deep concern of the good for the others in which God's
love join us in harmony. Jesus said, "it is by the way you
love each other that you will be recognized as my disciples"
and he gave his own example of caring for the most impoverished.
But how to go forward, to be aware of all the novel needs, ready
to accept the adventure of life, if we are fixed on the past.
Jesus not being any more physically with them, these men and
women, left alone, started to believe in the strength of their
message. One finds them on Pentecost day, still timid, staying
together in search of protection. But under the impulse of the
Spirit, they get up; they dare to take the relay and to start
to announce the message of life and love to all the nations.
Ascension and Pentecost are strictly linked. After being in the
mourning of the reassuring presence of Jesus, now made strong
by his Spirit, they can disperse to make known the Good News
of the one they followed on the roads of Palestine.
