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Gospel Reflection – Sunday, June 1, 2025
You are witnesses of this.
Dear brothers and sisters, peace and all good.
For the first Christians, it was hard to understand why Jesus, being the Messiah, didn’t restore the kingdom of Israel right away. As the years passed, their hope began to fade because they still hadn’t seen that restoration happen. Luke shares a conversation between the Apostles and the Lord. In that talk, he includes the question that early believers wanted to ask Jesus: “Is now the time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?”
Jesus’s answer can also give us a clue about how to live today. In very kind words, he tells them that it isn’t most important to know exactly when God’s Kingdom will be fully established—only God knows that—but rather to be able to live each moment with all the passion we can. That is why the two angels tell them to stop staring at the sky, to go back to Jerusalem, and to keep living their lives.
This is advice that can help all of us. Sometimes we might be tempted to wait for things to change before we do anything. “When I’m older… When I join a different religious community… When I get married… When I finish college… When I retire…” That temptation is very dangerous because it lets us justify not changing anything and just leaving things as they are, waiting to see how they turn out. And we keep staring at the sky, hoping solutions will drop down from above.
But that is not what God wants for us. For a Christian, any place and any time is what God has chosen for each of us. In other words, it’s what we have right now and must make the most of. “Escapism” or “futurism” means not really getting involved, always waiting for tomorrow.
If we want to be witnesses of this, as Jesus asks us in the Gospel, we must start giving testimony right now. And we must always remember the promise that has been with us for a while: the coming of the Holy Spirit. That strength that comes from above is what lets us face the future with confidence. Maybe we feel we aren’t capable, that the task is too big. Surely the disciples felt the same. Everything changed when the Holy Spirit came. Thanks to Him, cowardice turned into courage and laziness became zeal.
Maybe because of that promise, the Apostles went back to Jerusalem with joy. The sadness of being separated from the Lord was balanced by the blessing they had received; a confident wait for the arrival of the Comforter. Feeling blessed—that is, feeling happy and joyful—they got to work, ready to take the Good News to the ends of the earth. And they did it well. So well that all around the world we still find believers and communities who continue the work of those first Apostles.
We, too, are members of that Church that Saint Paul talks about. That Church that has Christ as its head, the One Priest, who sacrificed himself to open the way into the Father’s house. The final message to the disciple—who now has a heart purified by the blood and a body washed by the water of Baptism—is to stay faithful, not to waver in holding on to this hope.
It’s possible that when we think about Jesus’s Ascension, we begin to feel a longing in our hearts. It’s a moment of transition and hope. Just like the apostles that day, we look to heaven and yearn to be with Christ. Yet we continue our daily lives, carrying in our hearts this longing for eternity, knowing that only God can fill our lives with real and lasting happiness.
In the words of Saint Paul VI, on a day like today in 1976: “The Ascension of Christ into heaven lights up, guides, and sustains our path on earth.” The Ascension is a beautiful celebration, full of joy but touched with a slight sadness, reminding us that we still have much work to do on this earth until God calls us home to be with his Son forever and ever.
Your brother in faith,