The Ascension of the Lord – Alternate

posted in: Easter, Homilies | 0

Today’s readings

“You are witnesses of these things.”

That is what Jesus tells the disciples at the close of today’s Gospel reading. He is just about to ascend to the Father, and so he takes care to make sure that the disciples are ready for the mission. They are the ones who will have to testify to the death and resurrection of Christ, and to preach forgiveness of sins in his name to every person on earth.

And we can see that the disciples did indeed take up this mission. If that were not true, we would not be here right now. The Word has been proclaimed, the sacraments have been handed down, and we have benefitted from it.

And so now we are the witnesses of these things. We may not have seen the events unfold in front of us, but we have seen them in the Liturgy, and we believe that our celebration of the Liturgy is not some simple re-enactment of the events of our salvation, but in a very real sense is a participation in the death and resurrection of Christ in our own day.

We are the witnesses now. And people have to see us preaching with the way that we live our lives. We have to preach it by going to Mass faithfully, by keeping the commandments, by being people of integrity and fairness at our jobs or in our schools, by reaching out to those who are poor, needy and marginalized, by giving ourselves to others whenever, wherever, and however we can.

We are witnesses of these things. The question is, will others witness Christ in us?