For the Solemnity of the Ascension | Seventh Sunday of Easter…
…to wait for “the promise of the Father…”
Acts 1:4
Depending on where you live in the United States, the celebration of the Ascension might have been this past Thursday, or is still to come, liturgically, this Sunday. I grew up in the Northeast—and still live there—where for many Ascension Thursday still is a holy day of obligation. Or, as one of my beloved former pastors used to say, it is a holy day of invitation. And I think that’s a really beautiful way to look at the Christian life; for it is an invitation to be in relationship with God and with his mystical Body, the Church.
Jesus always proposes, he never imposes. He always invites us to newness of life, to repentance, to receive grace. And it’s up to us to choose to respond.
In this account from Acts, I love the name Jesus’ dubs the Holy Spirit: “the promise of the Father.” In the same breath he’s also reminding the Apostles of their dignity as children of God. We who are baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit are recipients of this same promise spoken about by Jesus that day.
The promise of the Father invites us to live in a new way: through him, with him and in him. The Spirit has animated the Church since Jesus breathed on the Apostles. May we invite the Holy Spirit to light our lives with holy fire!
Come, Holy Spirit!
