Ascension of the Lord Yr C 2025

Title

You Must Have Jesus to Take Him to the Nations

Outline

The church is constantly tempted to focus on power

This may be evangelistic power with crowds coming to faith or healing power or social power with significant inroads being made towards solving hunger or disease or poverty in a given area or even political power with the ideal being the Christian country.

Our readings show us that all this is secondary, following rather than preceding spiritual transformation

Our Gospel points to spiritual stabilization before outreach

The risen Jesus explains to them the history of salvation and the purpose of his death and resurrection, but tells them to wait for the Spirit (power from on high) before going to the nations. They had a period of consolidation as a post-resurrection community without the visible presence of Jesus during which they witnessed in the Temple before Pentecost.

Our first reading gives more detail about the stages

There were 40 days of instruction about the kingdom of God. They were to focus on their community and Jerusalem while waiting for the power for world evangelization, the Spirit. The next big event is his Ascension so he no longer has a where and can be everywhere, not just in Jerusalem, but that is connected with the Spirit coming. This period will end with Jesus’ return which may be the when of “restoring the kingdom to Israel,” for by then the wider Israel including the nations will have been gathered.

But Ephesians shows us that the inner work of the Spirit must precede the outward

Here we find John ch 20 with God giving the sevenfold spirit of Isa ch 11: wisdom, revelation, knowledge leading to enlightenment that leads to hope. (You hear the language of the virtues.) They will understand both who Christ is now as Ascended Lord, i.e. get the implications of his post-resurrection teaching, and how he relates to the Church into which they will gather their worldwide post-Pentecost converts.

The Church was gathered and organized during the ministry of Jesus and it was empowered within by the giving of the Spirit in John ch 20 so that when the time came for outreach it would actually look like Jesus, actually be the body of Christ. That was what was consolidating in after the Ascension, they were growing in the virtues, especially hope and charity under the leadership of the vicar of Christ so they could witness to the reality of Jesus in the world.

Sisters, it is important that we get this right.

We must be transformed by the teaching of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit with his Isa ch 11 gifts so that we look like Jesus, collectively are the body of Jesus and are enlivened with the hope of Jesus before we can effectively witness to the world who Jesus is.

That is why contemplation and community come before teaching, that is why you live and teach about the virtues in Catholic schools where most students are baptized and that is why the evangelistic apostolate comes after what I might call the formation apostolate.

If we get this we will avoid much of what plagues the wider Christian community and also understand the Ascension.