Ascension of the Lord (in some dioceses)
Lk 24:46-53
And he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Affirmed in One’s Vocation
In many churches today, we hear the Gospel story of Jesus’s ascension from earth into heaven. What a mix of feelings—shock and awe, fear, confusion, hope, responsibility, and more—Jesus’s friends must have felt at witnessing this, especially on the heels of all that had happened prior to this moment. Yet their joy and spirit of trust in what they saw and experienced—along with Jesus’s blessing—propelled them forward in a posture of praise and with a renewed commitment to the life and message of Jesus.
What have been some of the moments when you’ve most deeply felt a sense of affirmation or confirmation in your own vocation, your own call from God? How have you let go of fears, taken risks, and allowed yourself to be shaped and cultivated into your truest self—the person God invites you to be?
—Kristen Schenk is a former Jesuit Volunteer (Belize City 2008-10) and an alumna of Saint Louis University and Loyola University Chicago who now works in healthcare chaplaincy.
Prayer
I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
—Dawna Markova