Several years ago I had the privilege
of being at one of the ‘Interession for Priests’ retreats given
in Dublin every summer by Sr. Briege McKenna and Fr. Kevin Scallon.
These are a series of retreats put on specially for priests. This
particular year they were celebrating 25 years and the retreat I was
at was given by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa who is the preacher to the
Papal Household (to the Pope). He is and an extraordinary preacher
and it was a very inspiring few days.
One of the themes that he kept coming
back to is that ‘Jesus is Lord’; just that. The essence of
our faith is really very simple and this is one of the key elements
of it. Jesus is Lord and if we believe in him and ask forgiveness for
our sins, then we have eternal life with him.
‘If
you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved’ (Rom
10:9).
Some months later when Cantalamessa was
visiting the national seminary of Maynooth, he gave one talk and
again he kept coming back to this fact: Jesus Christ is Lord. One of
the professors sitting beside me said quietly, ‘It seems a bit too
simple really!’ I knew what he meant, but the truth is that it is
very simple. We tend to make it more complicated.
In today’s first reading from the
beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, Luke recalls the Lord’s
ascension into heaven. Just before Jesus ascended the Apostles asked
again, ‘Lord has the time come? Are you going to restore the
kingdom to Israel?’ In spite of all the time with Jesus and the
extraordinary things they saw, they still had a very earthly way of
thinking. ‘When will we have the power and glory? When will our
nation be the most important?’ Yet Jesus was showing them that this
was not important at all. Worldly ways and worldly thinking are not
important. Look at what the desire for earthly power is doing in the
Middle East. Preaching about Jesus and eternal life in him was the
only thing that mattered. The Apostles were to receive power, but not
worldly political power where everyone would acknowledge their
greatness. Instead they were to receive the power of the Spirit,
which would enable them to preach about Jesus, what He has done for
us, what our life is about and how we have life in him if we choose
it. That was the only thing that mattered. All of them
were to suffer for their preaching too, but that also was secondary.
They would be misunderstood by the world, as so many who preach the
Gospel still are, but that message must be proclaimed all the same.
Why was it so important that they
proclaim this message? Because God is the only one who makes sense of
why we are here in the first place and God wants his people to know
this. And so Jesus came among us to teach us about God and to offer
his life in atonement for our sins, so that we might have eternal
life with God; or to put it another way, so that we might reach
ultimate happiness and the total fulfilment that all of us long for.
That message is just as important today as all of us look for
happiness and fulfilment. In spite of the great advances of humanity,
most people are aware that something far deeper in us looks beyond
human achievement and we know that we will never be totally fulfilled
by human accomplishments alone. So the Spirit encourages us to look
to the things of God, the only place where we can find fulfilment.
In missionary work today it is
sometimes argued that we should not be talking about God, but only
helping those who are in need. While it is true that we must do all
we can to help those who are in need, the message of the Gospel
should also be preached to people because they have a right to hear
it. People have a right to know what God has done for them. It is up
to each person whether they choose to believe it or not, but they
have a right to hear the message that we have eternal life in God
through the death and resurrection of Jesus. God has asked us to make
this known to all people. Our material needs are important, but if we
neglect the spiritual needs, we may lose any sense of purpose and
what our life is about. This is just as bad as being without food as
it can cause people to despair. So we try to continue to pass on the
message that the Lord Jesus asked us to: Jesus is Lord and in him we
have eternal life with God.
Jesus ascending to heaven before the
Apostles’ eyes was also a confirmation to them and to us, that
something wonderful awaits us when we die. This life is not
everything, but only a preparation for the world to come. Hopefully
we will enjoy it and find some contentment in it, but we must not
lose sight of what also awaits us. Life after death is real and this
is what God wants for us. If we believe that, then it makes the
harder times here on earth a lot more bearable.
Now as he
blessed them, he withdrew from them and was carried up to heaven.
They worshipped him and then went back to Jerusalem full of joy and
they were continually in the Temple praising God (Lk 24:51-53).
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