OUR SUNDAY’S IN MAY

On the 21st of this month we celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord. Before the Ascension, Jesus had been the “doer”; His return to the Father made us the “doers”. Go….Live…Preach. Too many people of faith spend their time still looking up at the sky when they should be looking around at the work we have been given to do. Jesus did not just ask us, He commanded us to “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel.” What if we don’t go?

Luke wrote two volumes when writing his Gospel. The first volume we call the “Gospel According to Luke” and the second we call the “Acts of the Apostles”. Though separate, they are inseparable. Luke wrote his Gospel with Acts in mind, and the Acts explore for us the consequences of the Gospel. – Acts is really the “handbook” of the Church, telling us, “what we are supposed to do with ‘all Jesus did and taught until the day He was taken up.’” Luke was concerned with teaching the early Church. What is critically important is what the Apostles came to understand about Jesus’ teaching and, thus, what is passed on to us through their instruction.

Luke’s reference to the 40 days of Jesus’ appearances tells us that it took the Apostles time to unravel the meaning of the Lord’s death and resurrection. At the end of that time they received the gift of the Holy Spirit to give them even deeper understanding, plus the grace and courage necessary to do what Jesus had asked. There was a transition. Before Jesus it was enough to keep and follow the law. The law as it had been understood - Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Conformity was the best way to love God. Jesus changed this understanding – the “don’ts” mentioned above became “Do unto others what you want them to do unto you.”

The Ascension provided the moment for this transition. Acts tells us that “you will be my witnesses”….we can’t leave the spreading of the faith to others or to the “professionals” (priests and religious). Their role is not to do our work, their role is to help the whole Church know what its work is and to help us do that work.

Why has anything and everything become more important than doing the work of Christ? How is it that some parents let soccer games become more important than Sunday Mass? How is it we have time for civic clubs but not Church committees? How is it that many Catholics pay out more in tips in restaurants than they give to the Church? Why is it that others can publicly praise Jesus while we remain silent? It is time to get busy!

The Most Rev. John P. Walzer, D.D.
Archbishop