Jesus embodies the way to grow up and get ready for the life to come. Following him, we will get to the place that he readies for us and we will be where he is.

Just before going up to heaven, Jesus does for his followers what he has already done for two of them. For those who were on their way to Emmaus. That is, he opens their eyes, their minds, to understand the Scriptures about his death, passion and resurrection. Such understanding surely makes them grow in knowledge of him.

And we followers of Jesus today must also have this understanding and this knowledge. For otherwise, we can be neither witnesses of the Paschal Mystery nor preachers of repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

Moreover, today’s true disciples keep growing. And they do not grow only in one way but in different ways. For one thing, though Jesus is now out of sight, to them, however, he is still not out of mind. In other words, they so grow that they do not only grasp through bodily senses. They are able to rise above them through faith.

For another thing, just like yesterday, the followers of Jesus today prove themselves by not staying put in one place. For they eventually receive the promise of the Father, the Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of Jesus. Clothed thus with the power from on high, they outgrow their fear of what lies outside their shells (see SV.EN XII:81). This means that they grow out of their ethnocentrism, exclusivism, separatism, clericalism, to reach to out others, to those in the outskirts.

And, finally, those who follow Jesus are wholly true when they, too, love to the end. When they give their bodies up and shed their blood for others. This is to say that they “grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ” (Ephes 4, 15). They become blessings themselves. They, then, are ready also to be with Jesus.

Lord Jesus, may we grow up praising God always. And make us praise him not with our lips and voices only, but also with our minds, lives and actions (St. Augustine).

2 June 2019
Ascension of the Lord (C)
Acts 1, 1-11; Ephes 1, 17-23; Lk 24, 46-53