Someone recently proposed this summary of the book we call the Acts of the Apostles. They said, “Acts tells us, from beginning to end, that it is not our job to convert people, convince them, or save them. It is our job to tell them. The Holy Spirit of God will do all the rest.”
The Gospel for the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord (Matthew 28, 16-20) is “dangerous.” It is especially dangerous if we think that this is about something that happened in the past and something about the Apostles. That is wrong, and getting it wrong has consequences for the Church and all of her members. This Feast and the event we commemorate tells us that we, the Church, must be “a community of mission.”
We do have a mission in this life, all of us, and the mission is to “go” and tell others of the goodness of God and the power of His saving love in our lives.
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Do you know that the Church is growing by leaps and bounds in India, Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia? The Church in these places has a firm sense of her mission. Why do you think there are so many missionary priests coming here from those places? Because they have them to spare and they are willing to “go.” The greatest number of Jesuits in this world now live and work in India! Every community of Religious women is growing rapidly all through Asia. Seminaries in Vietnam are full. They are so full that the Communist Government restricts the numbers, and many young men are willing to wait their turn. These sorts of things happen when the Church sees clearly her calling and inspires the faithful to respond.
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We, too, can see more clearly our mission and respond. After all, this day we call “the Ascension” is really not about Jesus returning to the Father, nearly as much as it is about the Spirit of Jesus entering into us and about what the Spirit asks us to do … so that God’s goodness and love may truly remain with us always. Let us remember this: when we “go” and feed the hungry, God is with us; when we “go” and visit the lonely, God is with us; when we “go” and give someone who is thirsty a drink, God is with us; when we forgive, God is with us; and when we welcome the stranger or a sinner, God is powerfully with us. When these things happen (because we “go” and do them), all will know that, as Jesus reassures us, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
