Present In Us and Through Us

Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord May 20, 2012 (Mk 16:15-20)

He said to them, "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." 

So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Lord's Ascension. After appearing to His disciples during forty days after His resurrection, Jesus finally ascends, returning to the Father and taking His seat at God's right hand. But before He ascended, Jesus commissioned His disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all, assuring them that great signs will accompany them as He Himself will work with them.

The Lord's Ascension marks the end of His physical presence here on earth. But His presence does not end there. He continues to be with His Church; He is present in the community of those who believe in Him. And He wills that this community of believers grow in number. Jesus is present in every place where His Word is preached. He is present where His believers are. He is present in us. And because of His presence, we, His believers experience signs and wonders as a confirmation that Jesus is working in us.

Since we have become members of the community of believers who enjoy the special presence of Jesus, we also inherit the commandment that our Lord gave His disciples: "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature." As Jesus' disciples, it is our duty to spread the Word of God in everything we say and do. We must not speak nor act in a way that opposes the Word. Jesus is present in us. Therefore, we must also make Jesus present to others through us, in our words and deeds. By a faithful witnessing to the Word, we can make the people around us disciples of Jesus.

In Jesus' Ascension, we Christians draw hope and strength as we continue to obey His mandate to evangelize. As we live our faith and share the same faith to others, we are assured that the Christian way of life leads to heaven because Christ already went before us. As true Christians, our goals in life go far beyond worldly achievements, beyond a good career and even beyond earning a great deal of money. Our Solemnity today reminds us to look up to heaven as the disciples did. To be with Jesus in heaven is our ultimate goal as Christians.

As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Lord's Ascension into heaven, may we strive to be obedient to the Lord's command of evangelizing in everything we do, assured of Jesus' abiding presence and hopeful that we may one day merit to be in heaven with Him and with the people we have evangelized. May the Lord be present in us and through us!

John Believed

Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection April 8, 2012 (Jn 20:1-9)

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him."

So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.

When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

Jesus is risen! He is truly risen!

The resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of our faith. It is inseparable with His passion and death. It is part of His redemptive act and is a sign that God's love triumphs over our sinfulness. Jesus tomb has been emptied, a sign that sin and death lost.

In the Gospel, we hear about how Jesus' followers witnessed the empty tomb. Mary of Magdala, Peter and John saw that the body of Jesus was no longer in the tomb. It is but human to resist the idea that Jesus has risen from the dead because resurrection is no ordinary human experience. But they saw the empty tomb. And Jesus spoke to them before about rising from the dead. So they might be asking, "Could it be that He is alive?" And it was John who first believed, even though he too didn't understand everything well.

It was John who first believed. He saw how Jesus was crucified. He saw how Jesus died on the cross and how Jesus was pierced, causing blood and water to flow out from Him. If you saw a person die, you would probably be the last to believe a news about the same person rising from the dead. But that was not the case for John. He was the first to believe! It was probably by the grace of God that he believed even without sufficient understanding.

In our lives, when we face trials and all kinds of problems, we lose hope and we fail to believe in God's goodness and to trust in His wisdom. Like John, we witness and even experience suffering. But unlike him, we easily lose hope most of the time and we fail to believe.

The fact that Jesus is alive should bring us hope! He is alive because evil is never stronger than good and because God's love is forever mightier than sin. Everything evil or bad will fade away eventually, and joy will soon come.

But John showed us a very important attitude - we must experience suffering with and in Christ in order to fully experience Easter joy. We must carry our crosses as Jesus asked us to do. We must never view our suffering as merely something we have to get over with as soon as we can. Suffering and sacrifice must always be united with Christ's suffering. We must offer our suffering for God, for His greater glory and for help to those who always suffer. This is what we learned during Lent. We cannot just face Easter immediately. We must experience sacrificing during Lent to prepare ourselves . We must experience Good Friday with Jesus before we can celebrate Easter Sunday!

As we celebrate Easter, may our lives be filled with the hope that as long as we remain faithful to God, He will never abandon us and He will raise us up again each time we fall. May we experience Christ's new life - a life free from sin and a life of confidence in Him. May we always be children of Easter, dead in sinfulness but alive in Christ!