Fr. Carlo Di Sopra sx
Jesus, after having given one last appointment to the disciples to meet in a particular place, finally departed from them and ascended into heaven. What a mixture of feelings: sadness, joy, wonder, awe...; all the disciples, open-mouthed looking at the sky where Jesus had disappeared, needed an angel to bring them back to reality!
And now? What to do? Where to start from? What remains of the extraordinary experience with Jesus? They had been with him before he died. At first they thought everything had finished on the Cross, but then, for forty days they had seen him alive. The angel assured them that he would come back in the same way he left. Jesus too had tied himself with a promise: "I will be with you until the end of time"... It could look contradictory: at the very moment Jesus is leaving, he promises to be always present with the eleven.
There is also a strong commitment. They will have to reach the ends of the earth to make known to all the peoples about what happened in their time, a time of unique grace which will be called the fullness of time. Yes, the Holy Spirit will come and guide them.
We belong to this time: Jesus came, Jesus has gone, Jesus is present, Jesus will come. We remember the Gospel: A little while and you will see me no more; and after a little while, and you will see me... and how the disciples were puzzled. We too would like to tell Jesus to show himself again, to show us the Father, like Philip did, so we could be freed of any doubt or hesitation. We could even tell about him with more evidence, more conviction. But the reality is that the cloud is keeping him for good, taken away from our sight. He is present, He is absent!
Now I start to understand how beautiful this presence is, and how beautiful this absence is too. Maybe because of this I do not like those who talk about Jesus as if they knew everything about him. Preaching and shouting too much is how we spoil the mystery that is revealed in silence and not without effort and pain on our side. And I feel sorry also when I hear somebody denying his existence, because his absence is full of signs of his presence. Denying him is like shutting the eyes and saying that the sun is not there.
The evangelist John must have felt the same way when thinking about the time of this presence - absence of Jesus and his mandate to reach to the ends of the earth does not insist so much on preaching but on witnessing. What is for John the way to make Jesus known? "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another". How powerful (and sometimes forgotten) these words are!
by Fr. Carlo Di Sopra sx
Jesus, after having given one last appointment to the disciples to meet in a particular place, finally departed from them and ascended into heaven. What a mixture of feelings: sadness, joy, wonder, awe...; all the disciples, open-mouthed looking at the sky where Jesus had disappeared, needed an angel to bring them back to reality!
And now? What to do? Where to start from? What remains of the extraordinary experience with Jesus? They had been with him before he died. At first they thought everything had finished on the Cross, but then, for forty days they had seen him alive. The angel assured them that he would come back in the same way he left. Jesus too had tied himself with a promise: "I will be with you until the end of time"... It could look contradictory: at the very moment Jesus is leaving, he promises to be always present with the eleven.
There is also a strong commitment. They will have to reach the ends of the earth to make known to all the peoples about what happened in their time, a time of unique grace which will be called the fullness of time. Yes, the Holy Spirit will come and guide them.
We belong to this time: Jesus came, Jesus has gone, Jesus is present, Jesus will come. We remember the Gospel: A little while and you will see me no more; and after a little while, and you will see me... and how the disciples were puzzled. We too would like to tell Jesus to show himself again, to show us the Father, like Philip did, so we could be freed of any doubt or hesitation. We could even tell about him with more evidence, more conviction. But the reality is that the cloud is keeping him for good, taken away from our sight. He is present, He is absent!
Now I start to understand how beautiful this presence is, and how beautiful this absence is too. Maybe because of this I do not like those who talk about Jesus as if they knew everything about him. Preaching and shouting too much is how we spoil the mystery that is revealed in silence and not without effort and pain on our side. And I feel sorry also when I hear somebody denying his existence, because his absence is full of signs of his presence. Denying him is like shutting the eyes and saying that the sun is not there.
The evangelist John must have felt the same way when thinking about the time of this presence - absence of Jesus and his mandate to reach to the ends of the earth does not insist so much on preaching but on witnessing. What is for John the way to make Jesus known? "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another". How powerful (and sometimes forgotten) these words are!
by Fr. Carlo Di Sopra sx