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Reflection on the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord

Posted on May 26, 2022, by Mary Swain SL

Acts 1:1-11, Eph. 1:17-23, Luke 24:46-53

The Gospel passage from Luke that we just heard begins starkly and abruptly — an instruction from Jesus for his disciples.  It is helpful, I think, to know the setting. In the sentences immediately before this passage, Jesus is with the Eleven Apostles right after his resurrection.  He is showing them his hands and his feet and asking them for something to eat. They give him broiled fish, and he eats it. 

Their minds must be reeling. Good Friday is still vivid in their imaginations: Jesus is gone, dead, buried.  Yet, as Luke tells it, here is Jesus explaining quite briefly to the Eleven that they are witnesses of his life, his teaching, his death and now his resurrection. Thus, it is written, he says. It’s in the Scriptures that they have known for years. Jesus assumes that they know what is next — that they are to be witnesses of his teaching to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem. Thus, it is written. He does assure them that he is sending the promise of his Father upon them. They will be clothed with power from on high. Then Jesus is gone.

The Eleven return to Jerusalem filled with joy. They appear undaunted. They are to pick up where Jesus left off. The focus has shifted — from Jesus doing the teaching to their doing the teaching.

What about this feast of the Ascension and us? We have not had the experiences the disciples had with Jesus — the physical closeness, the speaking together, the intimacy. Nor have we experienced his being ripped away in violent death. We have heard the same command of Jesus that the disciples heard: Go outside your boundaries; teach what I have commanded you. We have done that as best we can — most of us for a long time.

This kind of living demands a lot of trust — trust of God, trust of myself, trust of each other. It is not clear, especially these days. There is much darkness: Putin killing Ukrainians in a war that goes on and on, democracy threatened in our own country.  The situation in the world is so desperate. How to have hope? Trust is hard to come by these days. There is a line from T.S. Eliot about hope — one of those we hear quoted periodically.  I can’t say that what Eliot says is “perfectly clear” to me, yet his words somehow speak to me. Eliot begins one section of the Four Quartets saying: “O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark.” Several lines further on is the part about hope. “I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope/ For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love/ For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith/ But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.”

We don’t know in faith; we are not certain in hope. We are forced, it seems to me, to fall into God. So we enter into Eucharist this morning, food for the journey, strength for the work ahead. We wait to be clothed once more with the power of the Spirit 10 days from now. We pray to have the faith and the hope to do what is given us to do.

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Mary Swain SL

Mary Swain SL has been a consultant to the National Religious Retirement Office and has served on the board for the National Association for Treasurers of Religious Institutes. Along with her math background and service to the Loretto Community in the financial area, she has experience as a church organist and plans and prepares materials for Loretto liturgies at Loretto Motherhouse and for special occasions. Mary resides at Loretto Motherhouse, the grounds of which receive her careful tending and loving touch.