THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD
As they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” (Acts 1:10-11)
This Thursday, we will celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord, another significant feast during the Easter Season. This is a very important feast for us as we reflect on the end goal of our lives – eternal life with God in heaven! Christmas and Easter are meaningless without the Ascension. Allow me to offer you some reflections on the importance of this celebration.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church offers an excellent teaching on the Ascension. In §659 of the Catechism, we read:
“So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” Christ’s body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys. But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the kingdom, his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity. Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God’s right hand.
Drawing from several of the scriptural accounts of our Lord’s post-resurrection appearances, the Church teaches that Christ’s body was glorified at his Resurrection, but his full glory did not become apparent until his Ascension. The Catechism goes on to explain in successive paragraphs:
- 660 The veiled character of the glory of the Risen One during this time is intimated in his mysterious words to Mary Magdalene: “I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn 20:17). This indicates a difference in manifestation between the glory of the risen Christ and that of the Christ exalted to the Father’s right hand, a transition marked by the historical and transcendent event of the Ascension.
- 663 Henceforth Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father: “By ‘the Father’s right hand’ we understand the glory and honor of divinity, where he who exists as Son of God before all ages, indeed as God, of one being with the Father, is seated bodily after he became incarnate and his flesh was glorified.”
- 664 Being seated at the Father’s right hand signifies the inauguration of the Messiah’s kingdom, the fulfillment of the prophet Daniel’s vision concerning the Son of man: “To him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” After this event the apostles became witnesses of the “kingdom [that] will have no end”.
Whereas the Resurrection assured our Lord’s followers that he was alive, the Ascension gave them – and us – definitive assurance that God’s kingdom has no end. As we approach the end of the Easter Season and continue to reflect on the meaning and significance of the mysteries of this great Season, let us be encouraged to follow the example of the first disciples and witness to everyone the new life our Lord offers in his Resurrection and the promise of entry into his eternal kingdom when he returns in glory!
MANNA BAGS
Throughout the year, you are invited and encouraged to participate in a variety of food drives, both here in our parish and – I’m sure – from a number of charitable agencies in our area and around the world. In the name of all of those you feed with the support you provide, I thank you for responding to our Lord’s call to feed the hungry. The summer is a particularly challenging time for these agencies and I would like to invite you to participate in a food drive that we sponsor every year to help some of the parishioners in our sister parish, St. Martin de Porres. As you can well imagine with the continued increases in food prices, our support is particularly important this year.
We’re all familiar with the gospel accounts of Jesus feeding large crowds; it’s one of the few stories of Jesus’ public ministry that we find in all four gospels (cf. Mt 14:13-21, 15:32-38; Mk 6:32-44; Lk 9:10-17; Jn 6:1-13). The accounts all begin with Jesus curing the sick or teaching the crowds at length and when it gets late the disciples ask him to send the crowd away so that people can buy themselves some food. Jesus directs the disciples to give the crowd food themselves. The disciples complain that they do not have nearly enough food for so many. Jesus tells them to go and see what they do have. They bring it to him and with it he feeds thousands! It is in this spirit that we share in feeding the hungry today, aware that our efforts are multiplied abundantly with our Lord’s help.
Every year, the Nutritional Development Services Office of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia invites all of the parishes throughout the Archdiocese to participate in the MANNA food drive. Each parish is, in turn, allowed to choose which Archdiocesan food center will receive their donations. Due to our close relationship with St. Martin de Porres parish, our sister parish, we select its food cupboard to receive the food we gather through this drive. You will find brown shopping bags on the tables at the church entrances this weekend; you may also use your own bags, if you prefer. Please fill them up with non-perishable food and return it to the parish library. We will deliver the food to St. Martin de Porres food cupboard to help them feed their hungry throughout the summer so feel free to drop off your donation at any time over these summer month.