The Popish Plot: vEaster
"Killing Time, Part 1"
'Tis the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord: Ascension-link, Wikipedia-link Ascension, & Wikipedia-link Feast.
Commentary: Wayback Machine.
Scripture of the Week
Mass Readings—Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
The Acts of the Apostles, chapter one, verses one thru eleven;
Psalm Forty-seven (R/. six), verses two & three, six & seven, & eight & nine;
The Letter to the Ephesians, chapter one, verses seventeen thru twenty-three;
The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter twenty-eight, verses nineteen(a) & twenty(b).
Commentary: Reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire):
Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus assures us that he will always remain with us. Only when we realize that our lives are situated in a context of a Life that stretches infinitely beyond them, only when we know that our wills are related to a Will that encompasses and surpasses the whole of the cosmos, are we ready to live.Video reflection by Father John Crossin, O.S.F.S. (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Ascension Reflection.
Matthew brings his Gospel to completion with Jesus’ Great Commission: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations… And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” We must come to terms with the fact that our lives are not about us.
There is Another who will tie us up and take us where we never imagined we could or would go; there is a Power that is operative in us and accompanies us whether we know it or not and that will accomplish what we, by our own power, could never accomplish.
In rest of the world outside of Anglophone North America the Solemnity of the Ascension is observed on the traditional date, the Thursday forty days after the Resurrection of the Lord, today is the Seventh Sunday of Easter: Wikipedia-link VII Sunday, Pascha-link & Wikipedia-link Paschaltide.
Mass Readings—Seventh Sunday of Easter
The Acts of the Apostles, chapter one, verses twelve, thirteen, & fourteen;
Psalm Twenty-seven (R/. thirteen), verses one, four, & seven & eight;
The First Letter of Peter, chapter four, verses thirteen thru sixteen;
The Gospel according to John, chapter seventeen, verses one thru eleven(a).
Commentary: Reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire):
Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus, the high priest of the New Covenant, asks the Father to give eternal life to his followers.Video reflection by Father Greg Friedman, O.F.M. (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Sunday Reflection.
But whereas the ordinary high priests of the Old Testament passed through the veil into the earthly holy of holies and offered an inadequate sacrifice, the perfect high priest passed into the heavenly sanctuary, bearing the sins of the world and bringing forth the divine forgiveness: “But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come to be . . . he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.”
The letter to the Hebrews makes the explicit connection between sacrifice and covenant: “For this reason, he [Christ] is the mediator of a new covenant . . . [that] those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.” Through the final sacrifice of Jesus the high priest, eternal life has been made available to the whole of humanity and the covenant thereby realized beyond the wildest fantasies of Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, or David.
Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
"The Ascension of Christ is the assurance of our own ascension into Heaven after the Last Judgment. Not yet ascended in body, we nevertheless enjoy the ascension of our minds in union with Him. We find our true home in Heaven."
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
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