Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Look at how wonderful this gospel is, these words are so precious that the Lord says, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them…. and teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you.” This is the catechumenate, whose purpose is to baptize and to teach. To really receive baptism, it is necessary for one to be taught and to be taught everything of what Jesus commanded. We need to be catechized. This can before baptism if one is baptized as an adult but most of us were baptized as children, so afterwards we need a catechumenate to know what it means to be a Christian.
The gospel also says, “I am with you always even until the end of the world.” That phrase helps me, allows me to rest and puts me in Easter, which is coming to an end. The time of Easter for a Christian always lives on, because Christ has risen and rises every time we celebrate the Eucharist, every time you receive the forgiveness of sins, every time a word of God helps you, we can be in Easter. But Easter time is coming to an end. I don’t know how you have lived it this week, but the fiftieth day is coming soon.
Easter means that the Lord has rescued you from some death because that is what Easter mean: something that was dead has come back to life. What deaths do you have today? Perhaps you are suffering from some sickness or the isolation during the pandemic has affected you. God uses even those times to help us to know ourselves and to see our weaknesses. It could be that God allows these difficulties so that we see more clearly the truth about ourselves. When we notice the things that kill us, we can experience how the Lord raises us up. Well, today the gospel gives us great news, much better news than we can imagine: the Lord ascends to heaven! The Lord has not only risen but he did not stay on the cross. He has not only risen but he ascended to heaven, and he takes us with him. He takes us to heaven today. This eucharist is heaven! He loves us so much that he takes us to heaven.
Let’s see why this is such good news that should make you profoundly happy. For you and for many people heaven is to have good health, lots of money and love, perhaps also a scholarship to school. For many people this is their heaven. But this is a very flat way of looking at heaven. These things give you a fleeting happiness, a good taste for a short period of time but they do not give you eternal happiness. You can have a house, a car, a scholarship, health, money, love, whatever you want, but you will not have eternal life and then you will be frustrated.
The problem is not your spouse or that you don’t have a better job, or you don’t have enough money. The problem is not that; the problem is that you do not have Jesus Christ within you. The problem is that you haven’t allowed yourself to go to heaven. This is why we are frustrated, and many things upset us. Because we don’t have the heaven that we are made for. Even if we have perfect health at some point, it will go away. Or we have the perfect love of a spouse or friend, but without Christ it does not last. Even if you won a huge scholarship at some point, you cannot study any more. Or even with your big new house with a view of NYC, one day you will get tired of it. Life always presents issues, problems, difficulties, and if you don’t have Christ, you don’t have eternal life, you don’t have joy.
I like very much the first reading where it says the disciples see Jesus ascending to heaven and everyone is looking up at the sky. There are two angels, or two men dressed in white, who tell them, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?” Yes, the sky is so beautiful, like the other day, when it was so clear. But I have better news for you. Christ is in heaven, yes, truly in heaven. And something even better than that. He wants to take you there!
At least for now we cannot go to heaven. But the two angels say he will return to you in the same way as he was taken up. When will he return? Do you know? He will in a few minutes, right now on the altar. The Lord will make himself present right here. You will see him; you will see Jesus Christ very soon and you can even eat him. Have you ever seen a mom who is so excited about a cute baby and says: she is so cute I can eat her up. This is what Jesus does for us. He lets us eat him and become like him. This is a very good news if the world knew that it had heaven within arm’s reach and can be in your mouth and in your heart, they would be amazed. They would come here every week.
Well, let’s receive Jesus Christ, so we can experience this heaven among us. Christ is very good. His love for us is stupendous. He loves us so deeply that he leaves himself for us, so he can enter our life, our rotten little lives, which are often full of sin. He enters the poor and needy because he was fascinated by the poor and the needy. Therefore, let’s rejoice, brothers and sisters, and go to live in this heaven that here for all of us today.