By Fr Antony Christy, SDB –
The Event, the Effect and the Edict
The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord: June 2, 2019
Acts 1: 1-11; Ephesians 1: 17-23; Luke 24: 46-53
As the Lord goes up, let us reflect on the 7-UP
The Lord ascends today to his Father and our Father! It is not an abandoning, as he himself very rightly had already assured us. It is an invitation! The invitation is to Go Up with the Lord. And this invitation to go up is given in 7 steps… let’s call it 7-UP!
In the first reading we are presented with the THE EVENT:
Christ ascends to the right hand of the Father!
Christ, GAVE UP the divinity and became like one of us (Phil 2).
How prepared are we to give up! The world tends to tell us to hold on, hold on to power and domination, to popularity and gain, to limelight and adulation. That is how we prepare even the upcoming children, convincing them it is important to prove oneself and make everyone know one’s own utility and importance.
Christ GOES UP today, by his obedience and fulfillment of the Divine Will (Heb 10:7)
Going up, is a consequence and it happens because the Father draws us up! The Father who had sent Jesus, the Christ to the world, had found in him, an absolute obedience and a childlike trust – those are the very messages imparted to us by the Ascending Lord, in order that we may measure up to the standards of the Father and go up.
Christ will SHOW UP leading everything to its fulfillment (Heb 10:36)
You will see the Son of Man come the way you saw him go, says the messenger from the Lord. Yes, the Lord shall show up, soon – but we need not panic or fret. Christ shall show up and we shall rejoice in it, if we live a life that is founded on the words and the commands of the Lord.
The second reading highlights THE EFFECT:
Because of the Son who was raised by God to God’s right hand, you and I are made worthy to accede to the presence of God!
We are RAISED UP by the fact that Christ became like us (2 Cor 8:9)
As Peter would remind us elsewhere, ‘we were once no people; but now we are made people of God’. We are the people of God and not that we deserve to be! We were raised up, we were given an identity that is so great and enviable… the challenge is that we live up to it.
We are DRESSED UP by the virtue of our baptism, (Col 2:12)
Receive this white cloth and bring it unsullied to that encounter with the Lord at the end of your life, was the challenge we accepted at our baptism. We are dressed up and our character is defined in such precise terms. All that we need to know is shape ourselves into that character, be transformed into it and grow in that identity.
We are BUILT UP into the family of God (1 Cor 10:17).
The challenge I have received is not just mine – its ours. The call is given within a family, the family of God’s people, God’s sons and daughters. I am built into a family, a temple, an abode for God. I am living my call fully only as long as I am living in unison with the rest of God’s family- divisions, discriminations, and defamations are all deviations!
The Gospel from Luke reminds us of what Jesus passed on to us, THE EDICT:
You are and you shall be my Witnesses on the Earth!
We are challenged to STAND UP for the Lord in the World today (Rom 12:2)
The world has its own standards, priorities and agenda. If I am truly a son or a daughter of God, I have stand of the Lord amidst all these contrasting and contesting priorities. That is why St. Paul gave a standing order: do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed! To be transformed is to be become like the Lord – if we live in the Lord, we shall die and rise in the Lord! Ultimately, we shall go up with the Lord!
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him.