The Feast of the Ascension 2012

I found this image on the internet and will gladly give credit to the artist.

May 17 - The Ascension

A Reflection

The message of this Feast is always pretty much the same, but to get the full picture we can usefully take a look at the Gospel for each of the three cycles.

The message this year is: " Go out into the whole world and proclaim the Good News to all creation ..." and then, importantly. " he who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned."

Then we have: "... Make disciples of all the nations ... and teach them to observe all the Commandments I gave you."

Finally: "... repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations."

When the Apostles went out to convert the world, they were quite clear that the world needed to be converted and they said, to the pagans, if not in so many words: " Reform, see where you are going wrong and correct your ways." The message was not always well received but nobody had any doubt about what the preachers meant; before preaching the GOOD NEWS of the Lord's love and forgiveness, they had to preach the BAD NEWS - "you are living sinful lives and need to change.' And they were right. If we are not clear about the Bad News, the Good News doesn't make sense.

What has happened in our Church for the past 40 or 50 years is that the Bad News has been, we might almost say, systematically soft-pedaled and we have all become " Easter People."

And so the bad news of the need for Confession has been almost forgotten while the good news about the Eucharist has been Underlined — forgetting that without regular examination of conscience and regular confession we easily slide into serious sin and to receive the Eucharist while in serious sin is REALLY bad news.

And so the bad news of the need for total fidelity in marriage has been ignored in favor of the good news of living without marriage, forgetting that this practice IS bad news.

And so the bad news of the need for chastity before marriage has been ignored in favor of the need for young people to grow up and this has led to the VERY bad news of AIDS and abortions.

You don't hear the bad news much any more. What we hear is the soothing news, the consoling news, the comforting news . . and this sort of news is needed. But not this only. You can't cure appendix by massaging the individual's abdomen with oil - you have to open it an cut out the diseased organ. You can't cure the diseases of the spirit by saying that nobody knows what's right or wrong any more. Now, that's REALLY bad news!

We have to ascend into Heaven. But when? When we die? No! Too late! We must :"ascend" every day of our lives, constantly striving to live better today than we did yesterday. That is the real ascension . . . and we can be called to ascend any time. So the time to begin preparation is ... NOW!

~ May 2012 Concord