Right before the Ascension in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says something intriguing before leaving: I am with you always.
An interesting way to say goodbye. I am with you always. Seems a big contradictory, doesn’t it?
Jesus has spent three years with these men, followed after His Passion with another 40 days of final instruction. And then He leaves. You can’t help but wonder what the Apostles thought. Take us with you, Lord?
After all, it seems like the work has been accomplished. Jesus Christ has saved us from sin. He has opened the gates of Heaven. So let’s all go home.
What had those forty days been like? Acts of the Apostles doesn’t tell us much about them. The Apostles must have had lots of questions for him. It was a time of final instruction and preparation for them. Just as Jesus prepared for his public ministry with 40 days in the desert, the Apostles are given these 40 days of preparation for the task they’re about to undertake – the extension of Jesus’ public ministry through the life of the Church.
This is precisely why He leaves them behind. There is still work to be done.
He doesn’t leave without giving them a few things: a mission and a promise. They are to preach and baptize to the ends of the earth. But He will send the Holy Spirit, without Whom the work is impossible. He promises them power: the same power that had been given to Him.
Often when we focus on the Great Commission, we begin with Matthew 28:19: Go therefore… But we need to begin with verse 18: All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me…
God does not call us to a mission without giving us what we need to accomplish it.
Jesus gives these eleven men an enormous mission. He is asking them to do something radical: to continue what he has done for three years, to continue the saving work of his public ministry, to bring the grace of salvation to the ends of the earth. He is asking them to witness to what they’ve seen and heard, and go and do even greater works than the ones they witnessed.
Yet, He is not sending them to do it on their own.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Do we honestly believe this? Or perhaps we believe that the Apostles received the power, but that ended in the first century. Do we believe that we received that same Holy Spirit at our Confirmation? Confirmation, in the words of Pope Saint Paul VI, “perpetuates in the Church the grace of Pentecost.”
Christ seems to have left His Apostles behind at His Ascension. He left them behind for you: that you might share in the wonders of His public ministry, that you might be healed and saved, that you too may be His witness. Do we believe that? Do we act like we believe it?
If we believe it, we need to live like we believe it. We must be his witnesses – to our family, our friends, our coworkers, the stranger on the street. Let us speak of what He has done for us. This will require courage and creativity. Life after the Ascension was a life of mission. God had given the apostles the grace of being with Christ, and now they had to go out. He would give them the Spirit to make it possible, but it wouldn’t happen without courage.
You too have had moments of grace, where you have known Christ in a unique way. He’s given you certain gifts, “mountaintop” moments in prayer, or experiences of His healing, work, and power. Like the Apostles, now you’re called to go out.
He has given us a mission. But He does not call us to a mission without giving us what we need to accomplish it.
Come, Holy Spirit!
I have been thinking a great deal about my experience at Reconciliation this past Saturday. I felt an intense and unexplainable urge to go and confess my sins when I woke up that morning. I try to go every six weeks or so, but this was no routine visit to the priest for me. I needed to unburden myself of the numerous venial sins I had committed since I last participated in this Sacrament.
Purest Gold: God's Refining Fire in our Lives »
After salvation, many young Christians wonder if there's anything more to their newfound faith than just the security blanket of "being a Christian." Time and time again, God shows himself as a "refiner," and our lives are as gold. God started leading me in this study to understand what He was doing in my life, as well as in the lives of others.
Picking up my pen to write this column, I couldn’t imagine how time flies. Since the last publication of this column I have gone through a lot, especially the loss of my dear mother to whom I dedicate this article. Not only her, but seems I lost a whole generation of my close family.
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Most of us youth in today's fast moving world are easily thrown off by difficulties and worries.
The theme of conversion is a thread that runs all through Lent, but conversion takes on different aspects throughout the phases of Lent. The first two and a half weeks focused on the interior turning of hearts; the liturgy urges the faithful to reflect and examine consciences thoroughly.
Saint Josephine Bakhita »
Feast Day: February 8
Patron Saint Of: Sudan
Saint Josephine Margaret Bakhita was born around 1869 in the village of Olgossa in the Darfur region of Sudan. She was a member of the Daju people and her uncle was a tribal chief. Due to her family lineage, she grew up happy and relatively prosperous, saying that as a child, she did not know suffering.
Catholics Must Fast More Intensely This Lent»
The Norbertine Canons of St. Michael's Abbey have created this digital Lenten retreat so that you can journey through this holy season alongside them. If you want to have one of your best Lenten seasons yet, join us in our Lenten Program "The Great Fast" - https://theabbotscircle.com/the-great-fast-join
When Your Faith Is Put to the Test - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon»
Friends, we come now to the Second Sunday of Lent, and we’re on both dangerous and very holy ground with the first reading from the twenty-second chapter of Genesis. The ancient Israelites referred to it as the “Akedah,” which means the “binding”: Abraham binds and is ready to sacrifice Isaac at God’s command.
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