2024-05-12 04:49:33
Dear brothers, peace and good.
In everyone’s life there comes a special moment: that of farewell. The time to say goodbye (“go with God”, the classics said). Jesus says goodbye to his friends. The unexpected, surprising encounters of Christ with his friends end, encounters capable of restoring hope to a group of frightened disciples, and the time of the Church begins. It is the solemnity of the Ascension.
The evangelist Luke tells us about the exaltation of Jesus. It was not something visible, it is difficult to explain it. But it is clear to us that Jesus ascends to heaven, to sit at the right hand of the Father. Maybe we don’t quite understand what this means. On the afternoon of Good Friday we meditated on how a Person of the Trinity has suffered and died for us. Today, Ascension Day, we can, with the same amazement, meditate that one of us, a man, has been elevated above all, to participate in the immortal life of God himself.
Christ appeared to his Disciples, after his martyrdom on the cross and the triumph of the Resurrection. His disciples were convinced of victory over death, their faith was strengthened, they were recovering their hope… But the time has come to leave… How they would like their Master to always be with them!
We must understand that, thanks to God, thanks to Christ, the doors of Heaven have been opened to us. We have a glorious destiny, a path that Jesus has already traveled, to make way for us too. Not everything is lost. The door is now open, and it has shown us that everything that happens in the world (failures and successes, injustices, suffering, early deaths…) all falls into God’s plans.
Furthermore, the words of Jesus, “it is to your advantage that I go away” (Jn 16:7) continued to echo in the ears of Jesus’ friends. The promise of the Spirit is a comfort at that time of separation. Perhaps that is why the Apostles saw the Lord leaving with joy (Luke 24:52). A new time was beginning, the time of the nascent, missionary Church, ready to reach the ends of the earth. It can be said that it is the coming of age of this Church of ours.
Of course, not everything was easy. The second reading reminds us that, without God’s help, it is difficult to understand this. It’s hard to know how we should live. Paul therefore asks for wisdom for believers. We are not talking about human wisdom, but about the capacity, the intelligence to understand the mystery of God and the mystery of the Church. The Apostle prays that you are – let us be – able to understand the greatness of the hope to which we have been called. If in the first reading we were invited not to sit still, to get involved in the daily problems of this world, in the second we are reminded that our lives are not limited by the finite horizon of this world, but that we are always waiting. of the glorious coming of Christ, to take us definitively with Him.
When we live for the first time the personal experience of encountering Christ, when we know him very closely, we do not want him to leave us, we want to feel the presence of Jesus always. But thus we will be with the Lord only in the Kingdom of Heaven. Here on earth, having known the Lord, we must learn to love for ourselves. And we can only learn true love through trials. Having gone through our own suffering, as Jesus suffered, we learn to be merciful and compassionate toward our neighbors.
Sometimes, we will have to go through the dryness of prayer, the state of “desert” and abandonment of God. It is the experience that even the best-known mystics had. The Dark Night” by Saint John of the Cross, for example. It is the way to learn true, selfless, unconditional love, like the one God has for us. Love God only for God himself. Trust and pray. And so we grow in faith, hope and love.
But even if we overcome these tests, we remain weak creatures and, therefore, the Lord accompanies us to the end. Having ascended to heaven, the Lord sends the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, who is present in our lives as a “gentle breath” (cf. 1 Kings 19:12). We do not see the Holy Spirit, but He remains with us, strengthens us and guides us. Always. It is enough for us to believe in it and live in such a way that that Holy Spirit can dwell in us.
Dear brothers, like the Apostles, convinced of the truth of our faith, let us carry the burning torch of God’s love through life, so that this light illuminates the path not only for us, but also for our neighbors, brothers, everyone. those who cross our path. Let it be noted that we are believers. Let us not be afraid, let us grow in love, giving our hearts to God!
Your brother in faith,
Alejandro Carbajo, CMF
1715491567
#Commentary #Gospel #Solemnity #Ascension