Fr. Jerome Pistoni, sx
ASCENSION SUNDAY
This coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. After his Resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days with the apostles, teaching them many things. After that brief but complete “Catechumenate” he left them and returned to his Father.
The liturgical calendar, on the occasion of this Solemnity, offers this year, to our meditation, a story found in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 28:16-20. From the account of the evangelist, we can draw some interesting considerations.
After his Resurrection he met the apostles in Galilee: strange place to start again! Galilee was a despised region. It was inhabited by a mixed population. Isaiah designated it as “the land of the Gentiles”, that is, of the pagans. The Orthodox Jews looked at it with suspicion and distrust.
To Philip, who said to Nathanael: “Come and see, we have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the Law, and also the Prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth”, Nathanael answered: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” The Pharisees, to a shy Nicodemus, who wanted to defend Jesus during a session of the Sanhedrin, said: “Read the Scriptures and see for yourself that no prophet is to come from Galilee” (John 7:52). The young church was not meant to address her message to the orthodox Jews, who had already rejected Jesus, but to all peoples of good will and Galilee was the perfect starting point to meet this demand.
Another interesting point for our consideration is the number of the apostles who met Jesus in Galilee: they were eleven: the new church, like Jesus, carried the wounds of the passion; Matthew was not ashamed to point out that the group of the apostles was crippled, that one was lost, Judas, who betrayed Jesus.
Matthew, with an almost insignificant hint, tells the Christians of all times that it is impossible to do the same work of Jesus without his help. Remaining inside the Church is the condition to avoid falling back and within the Church we can find the strength to start again, after our failures.The Eleven were offered a second chance to prove their love for Jesus and had been chosen to become the foundation of the new community, enriched by the experience of their own failure.
The third interesting point, in the gospel of the Matthew, are the doubts of the apostles: “When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated”. They spent 40 days with him, they saw him with their own eyes and still they hesitated? Some of them probably believed that they were seeing a ghost, that that vision was fruit of their distressed imagination. The resurrection cannot be demonstrated with scientific evidence, it is the fruit of faith. Only in an spirit of faith can doubts be dissipated.
Finally the reason of the founding of the church is clear: the apostles are not meant to remain in their own country, but are sent to proclaim the good news to all nations. What a great responsibility do they receive! They will continue the work of Jesus that was interrupted by his passion and death.
Many people were out there, still waiting for the message of life and the apostles were the first to spread it, with courage and enthusiasm, helped by Jesus who did not left them with the Ascension, but had simply changed the way he was present among them: “I am with you always, yes, till the end of time.
ASCENSION SUNDAY
This coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. After his Resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days with the apostles, teaching them many things. After that brief but complete “Catechumenate” he left them and returned to his Father.
The liturgical calendar, on the occasion of this Solemnity, offers this year, to our meditation, a story found in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 28:16-20. From the account of the evangelist, we can draw some interesting considerations.
After his Resurrection he met the apostles in Galilee: strange place to start again! Galilee was a despised region. It was inhabited by a mixed population. Isaiah designated it as “the land of the Gentiles”, that is, of the pagans. The Orthodox Jews looked at it with suspicion and distrust.
To Philip, who said to Nathanael: “Come and see, we have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the Law, and also the Prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth”, Nathanael answered: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” The Pharisees, to a shy Nicodemus, who wanted to defend Jesus during a session of the Sanhedrin, said: “Read the Scriptures and see for yourself that no prophet is to come from Galilee” (John 7:52). The young church was not meant to address her message to the orthodox Jews, who had already rejected Jesus, but to all peoples of good will and Galilee was the perfect starting point to meet this demand.
Another interesting point for our consideration is the number of the apostles who met Jesus in Galilee: they were eleven: the new church, like Jesus, carried the wounds of the passion; Matthew was not ashamed to point out that the group of the apostles was crippled, that one was lost, Judas, who betrayed Jesus.
Matthew, with an almost insignificant hint, tells the Christians of all times that it is impossible to do the same work of Jesus without his help. Remaining inside the Church is the condition to avoid falling back and within the Church we can find the strength to start again, after our failures.The Eleven were offered a second chance to prove their love for Jesus and had been chosen to become the foundation of the new community, enriched by the experience of their own failure.
The third interesting point, in the gospel of the Matthew, are the doubts of the apostles: “When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated”. They spent 40 days with him, they saw him with their own eyes and still they hesitated? Some of them probably believed that they were seeing a ghost, that that vision was fruit of their distressed imagination. The resurrection cannot be demonstrated with scientific evidence, it is the fruit of faith. Only in an spirit of faith can doubts be dissipated.
Finally the reason of the founding of the church is clear: the apostles are not meant to remain in their own country, but are sent to proclaim the good news to all nations. What a great responsibility do they receive! They will continue the work of Jesus that was interrupted by his passion and death.
Many people were out there, still waiting for the message of life and the apostles were the first to spread it, with courage and enthusiasm, helped by Jesus who did not left them with the Ascension, but had simply changed the way he was present among them: “I am with you always, yes, till the end of time.