ME
NU

OMELIE / Omelie EN

21 mag 2023
21/05/2023 – The The AscensionoftheLord – year A

21/05/2023 – The The AscensionoftheLord – year A

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

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”. The mystery of the Ascension of Jesus into heaven is a great mystery, so an event which hides and reveals the Father’s love for men. It hides it from us, because at first sight we do not understand, we are like the disciples who are focusing their eyes on the clouds and the blue of the sky, on the material look, on the sign used by God to talk to us. It reveals it to us, when we start making it the object of faith, when we look at it in its spiritual depth without following the temptation to understand with our mind, which is always attracted by things which are going to pass and are keeping us grounded on the surface of earth.

The angels speak of this event as they would for a prophecy, the promise of His return: He will come back on the clouds! From this detail we understand again, in case we have forgotten or underestimated it, that Jesus is the “Son of man” the prophet Daniel is talking about (7,13-14): “I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed”.

The Ascension too is showing in this way Jesus’s identity, and Hos place in God’s plan. It is this very Jesus, who we had close as a Master and a friend, He is the judge of all peoples, the one the whole world will have to reckon with. So we are even more thankful to having known Him, listened to and loved Him, and we are certain of the eternal value of His Word, and therefore that we are on the true and correct path which brings us to enjoy the full realisation of our existence.

Jesus who is ascending into heaven is an extra reassurance God is giving us in His regard. He will always be next to the Father, nobody will ever replace Him: all men, so-called wise, who are coming after Him, if they tried to present themselves as God’s reincarnation or as sent by Him, we would be able to recognise them as liars and conmen. Every age has its own ones, even ours. Jesus is sitting at the right hand side of the Father forever, and from this throne He sends forth His Spirit to guide and support each one of us on our difficult path on earth, to guard and enlighten the Church. He Himself has wanted her to be always live and present to accompany men and gather them in unity to present them to the Father.

The Holy Spirit, who he will send, will make us men, from weak and fearful as we are, into strong and brave people, witnesses of His beauty and His truth and witnesses that only Him is true complete salvation and eternal for everyone.

This is what Saint Paul is also talking about, but above all, Jesus when He sends His disciples in the whole world. Their mission is necessary for all the people, even for those who are proud of following very ancient religions. They do not make men’s life on earth better and they do not prepare them to be brethren to the sufferers, they do not make them able to be in communion and in peace and do not give them salvation. Jesus, seated at the right hand of the Father, is the true gift for everyone, the sun which can illuminate and warm up every people on earth, and bring to fruition the seeds of goodness already planted in every man’s heart, whatever people they are from.

Thank you, Jesus, ascended into heaven: we wait for you, we prepare your coming by obeying your word!