OMELIE / Omelie EN

24 mag 2020

24/05/2020 -  Ascension of the Lord - A 

24/05/2020 -  Ascension of the Lord - A 

Reading 1 ACTS 1,1-11 * Psalm 46 * Reading 2 EPH 1,17-23 * Gospel MT 28,16-20

Today we give thanks for the mystery of the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, a mystery which completes the glory of His resurrection! We can contemplate our Lord, our friend and brother Jesus, in His divine glory, we can enjoy with Him the greatest joy, the most complete and final, and above all we can put our trust in His authority. He in fact is “seated at the right hand of the Father”, as we say in the Creed, echoing the apostle’s words in today’s second reading. This expression means that He has received every authority from the Father, who is then going to judge us based on our obedience to Jesus' word, and He is going to save us, because we have loved the Son of His, who now is always with Him.

The apostle Saint Paul today is praying for His Christians in Ephesus, and for us, with this desire, so the Father may “give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him”. I become aware that, despite the fact that I have put effort for many years into knowing Jesus, I still know Him very little. Every time I read the Gospel I discover some new aspects of His wisdom and His love. But above all when I suffer with Him and for Him, I access His mystery, and therefore my knowledge of His love is expanding in a very unexpected way.

Today’s mystery is still a mystery of expectation: Jesus Himself, preparing for His ascension into heaven, has advised His own to persevere in prayer while waiting for when the “Holy Spirit comes upon you” giving them the necessary strength to be His witnesses. And then the two messengers come dressed in white garments announce the glorious and joyful return of the same Lord Jesus, a return that need to be awaited because with it the history of men comes to fruition. Therefore, we continue to live in this double wait: of the Spirit and of Jesus. This wait fills, embellishes and makes enjoyable our prayer to the Father: Come, Holy Spirit! Come, Lord Jesus! These invocations make clear the one that the Lord has already suggested when He was teaching us how to pray. Then He has taught us to say “Our Father,… Thy kingdom come”. This means longing for the coming and the work of the King of the kingdom, and our obedience to Him, so the kingdom may happen thanks to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit makes us wait for Jesus not in a selfish way, in order to get the benefits of consolation or health thanks to His coming and His presence, but because we want to give ourselves to Him, because we want to offer ourselves for the coming of His kingdom, for the foundation and the growth of His Church, for the peace of heart and of peoples.

Jesus’ last blessing to the disciples before disappearing from their view has been, in fact, the establishment of a new task, which has changed the meaning and the goal of their life. “Go, therefore, …”: they do not live anymore only for themselves they live to spread the light and grace of the Gospel in the whole world, they live to cover men in the love of that God who has sent Jesus for them to suffer to death. In fact men, until they meet Jesus, are sad and oppressed, they suffer under the power of the devil that keeps them burdened with fears, or with the lies of those who are interested in their own glory.

I too am waiting for the Holy Spirit, and ask the Father to give it to me thanks to Jesus' sacrifice. By the Holy Spirit my life will be transformed, will be made able to bear witness to him, who has loved  me and has given Himself up for me. The Holy Spirit will help me wait for Jesus and therefore live every moment under the influence of His vivifying Word.

Come, Holy Spirit! Come, Lord Jesus! In communion with the whole Church, and in the simplicity of the parish or of the community in which You have put me, I will be able to offer myself in order to serve You and to be a tool of your glory and for the salvation of the world!