Be My Witnesses

May 20, 2012

Ascension 2012 B

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ

When they had gathered together they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"  He answered them, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority.   But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."  Acts 1:6-8

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come.   Ephesians 1:18-21

"Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.   Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned."  Mark 16:15

Piety

The Ascension of Christ is the final hope of every Christian for themselves.  Christ returned to the Father and took his place in God.  Heaven for us is the person of Christ.  We will become what we see as we find our place in heaven in Christ.  Here on earth our piety is expressed in all the ways we have put on the mind and the heart of Christ.  We grow into Christ even as Christ in our Eucharistic celebrations takes us into himself.  In our reception of Christ in Eucharist we grow in his life.  There is more Christ in us because of each Eucharist as he takes us into himself even as we take him into who we are.  Our piety has its fullest expression in Christ.  Christ is our foothold in heaven even as we are his foothold on earth.  We are his hands and his feet when we live in the love we have for one another.  We have been created in the image and likeness of Christ.  We live the fullness of that image in our love for one another.

Study

Each time we focus a word of Christ and allow it to take root in our heart, our lives become conformed to Christ and the Christ way of doing things.   We give Christ to another when we are willing to be ourselves in Christ.  What we do in his name becomes who we are in his being the deepest meaning of our lives.  We study Christ not just to become more like Christ but to be real Christs  in all that we are.  My favorite definition of a saint is a transparency of Christ.

Action

Mark, 12:15-20 offers us the challenge of discipleship.  “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” We preach by our lives and our lives need to be signs of the Christ we received in our baptisms.  We have the best action we can do in the good example of our lives.  Our working with the sick brings recovery for those we touch in the name of Christ.  We speak the language of God by our love.  We proclaim the good news that is the fact that God loves us.  We are the continuity of the love of Christ as we pass on what he gave us.  The Ascension is for us the signal for doing the work of Christ.  He went before us to prepare a place for us.  We preach how much God love us in all the ways we make Christ real in what we say and do.  The Ascension of Christ is the beginning of everlasting life for all believers.  We are the voice of the Ascension by the holiness of our lives.  We must do whatever we do in the name of Christ.