I was not alone on the Mount of Olives when I placed my foot in that stony depression where our Gospel takes place today.
From this stone that Jesus last touched, our tradition recalls his leaping — that is, ascending into heaven. I was on pilgrimage with Mater Dei Tours when each of the pilgrims wanted to follow Jesus by standing in that very place where our tradition holds that Jesus was taken up into heaven to take his seat at the right hand of God.
This Mother’s Day, it’s good to remind ourselves that before our feet can be lifted to heaven, we are called not to stand still, but rather to go to all the places Jesus is sending us to serve. Our Gospel records Jesus saying to his disciples, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Only by God’s blessing can such miraculous works be accomplished. While “these signs” seem remarkable, considering the Holy Spirit, I have seen such signs given close to home.
For example, I remember my own mom placing her hand on my forehead to take my temperature when I was sick. Through her loving care, I got better. While my mom did not handle serpents, I must admit, she was the first one to pick up the dirty dishes and wash them. My dad and I avoided them, as if they were serpents under the soapy water! Yet, my mom was not afraid to plunge into that soupy mess to scrub and wash each one with love.
Love, we know, is the best medicine to remedy any poison of sin. As to driving out demons? How many Saturdays did my mom drive me to church, so she could go to confession, along with my dad, that I too could follow them where their feet led. I am furthermore grateful to both my mother’s and father’s belief in Jesus and for choosing to baptize me shortly after my birth. Having been born into the fallen human condition of Adam and Eve, they wanted me, from the first moments of my life, to be brought into the amazing grace of Jesus’ Holy Family.
On this Mother’s Day, it is the language of love we are learning by example. Jesus is teaching us to do more than speak — he is teaching us to live and joyfully put into practice the Gospel we love to share.
Not only do mothers have something to teach us, but so do fathers.
Today, St. Augustine, a Church Father and doctor of the Church, teaches us about Jesus’ ascension into heaven: “Jesus did not leave heaven when he came down to us; nor did he withdraw from us when he went up again into heaven.”
The Apostle goes on to explain: “Just as the human body, which has many members, is a unity, because all the different members make one body, so is it also with Christ. He too has many members, but one body. Out of compassion for us he descended from heaven, and although he ascended alone, we also ascend, because we are in him by grace. Thus, no one but Christ descended and no one but Christ ascended; not because there is no distinction between the head and the body, but because the body as a unity cannot be separated from the head.”
United with our head, Jesus Christ, we can speak through our loving actions. We will be learning more about that language of love next Sunday, when on the Feast of Pentecost we will all be led into that Upper Room. There with Mary, Mother of the Church, we will receive the Holy Spirit! And with the Apostles, we will discover that — united with Christ and his Body, the Church — we can do all things in him who strengthens each one by his love.
Father Perkl is pastor of Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville.
Sunday, May 12
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
