The Ascension of the Lord
Year B
Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:17-23 or Ephesians 4:1-13; Mark 16:15-20
Proclaim the Good News to All Creation
The mandate we are given today, on the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, is to ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the good news to all creation.’ We are called to ‘go out.’ Let us reflect upon this aspect of going out and see what it means to us, especially in our day-to-day life. Personally, as a religious missionary, I feel, the aspect of going out for me is to leave behind my own culture, language group, even my own family and go on to embrace a new culture, language group, families, etc. But it is not something everyone can do, especially, when one is married and committed to bring up one’s family, ‘going out,’ in the sense I have mentioned above, is not possible, and not wise either (!).
On the other hand, going out, does not have to be going out physically from one’s geographical area. It is something each of us can do in our own given circumstances. One example would be better here. I am working in Central Australia, among the Eastern Arrernte family group of Ltyentye Apurte (Santa Teresa). The simple lifestyle of these people and unfathomable faith in God’s providence always fills me with awe. Recently one of the youngsters was in a bad accident and she was thrown out of the car they were travelling in. When we visited her in the hospital, she shared her experience and said she was not in pain. When the accident happened, she felt, as if someone gently lifted her up and moved her out of the car and laid her down. Yes, it is something unbelievable, but for her, it was divine providence. Even in that dire situation, she could feel the gentle touch of God. I think, this is what I call ‘going out,’ sharing with others our experience of God, even those experiences (like the one with our youngster) which some may feel impossible.
Our life, as the follower of Christ, itself is good news. How we react with people in a given situation, how we conduct our affairs with our neighbours, how we look after each other, especially our young are a testament of our Christian life; and we don’t need to physically ‘go out’ to proclaim it to others. We can do it, well and truly, in our given circumstances. Consequently, when Jesus instructed his Apostles to go out, he did send them off to different parts of the world, but also invited them to live a life, which is a witness to that of Jesus’ life. Let us then stop worrying about going out to distant lands (except some of us, who have chosen to do so!) to proclaim the good news and start living it here and now in the given situation. And that will be the real testament of who we really are: followers of the Risen Lord.