GOSPEL POWER |MAY 16, 2021 SUNDAY | Solemnity of Our Lord’s Ascension

55th World Communications Day |Gospel: Mk 16: 15 - 20

Jesus said to his disciples, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.

REFLECTION

It is as a human being — the first pattern of the new  humanity — that Jesus reenters the sphere of God, which  is what heaven is. Jesus’ entire human life, his loving  decisions and choices pointed to us the presence of that sphere.  And his death and resurrection opened up for us the way to it. The  heavenly Kingdom is now definitively established on earth as a reality  whose splendor is not yet fully unveiled. Jesus’ ascension into heaven  is his enthronement as heir of this Kingdom. Though his mission  as a human being has been fulfilled, Jesus continues to be the Lord  who empowers the proclamation that the Kingdom of heaven —  God’s sphere — is now present on earth as a reality that awaits its  full manifestation. We, too, become co-heirs of this Kingdom as we  follow the pattern of Jesus’ faithful human life.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus, mold our lives according to the pattern of your faithful life  so that we may join you in the sphere of God where you have preceded us.  Amen