Surfers Paradise Catholic Parish - Weekend Homily (Mass) -Ascension Sunday May the Lord's Peace be with you! Please find linked below the Mass for this Weekend: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/ascension-faith-hope-and-love-year-c-2022-367 Our Lord returns to the Heavenly Father, but he is still with us through the Holy Spirit. He now commissions us his disciples to continue his work; to keep spreading his message of good news and to keep living and proclaiming his gospel. We are on the journey towards the fullness of God's Kingdom. Everything we do and say is directed towards cooperating in God's work of the Kingdom. If Jesus had not returned to the Father, we would still be saying "there he is over there!" or "here he is only over here!!"; But now, by returning to Heaven and sending the Holy Spirit to us, Jesus is "all IN all" because Christ makes his home in our hearts and in our world, through the Holy Spirit. All the while, we work to make our homes, our workplaces and our city, more and more places of Christian value and action. The Spirit helps us to make Christ present in the midst of a world which can be too often filled with selfishness, undue privilege, arrogance; and abuse of power or authority. Tragically this world is capable of showing a terrible indifference towards the poor, the hungry and the suffering. As one scripture scholar puts it:** "Ascension and Pentecost are feasts of Christian maturity. We are now called to continue Jesus' mission with our insight into reality, our criteria, and our decisions. Luke's Gospel on the Ascension has a fascinating, different, focus from Matthew and Mark's versions.** In these other two gospels, the Disciples are sent out on a mission. In Luke, yes they are implicitly sent on a mission but they are particularly sent out, in the visible absence of Christ, to be witnesses of Christ in their words and actions in the world. Our Lord's absence is not as if he is dead and gone. Rather, he is alive, and with the Father, and he will return at the end to complete all things. In the meantime, we must be his hands and eyes and heart in the world, through the Power of the Spirit. "For, the "power of the Spirit" (Acts 1:7) is with us. We must not stand still looking up and lamenting the absence of the Lord. We must not sit around waiting for his return in a passive kind of way. Instead, we must set out on our way to take his gospel "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). We are now adult Christians, not immature, not passive; not merely waiting for answers or tasks to fall out of the sky… but rather shareholders in the kingdom, sons, and daughters of the eternal God, brothers, and sisters of Christ…. with a real part to play in the action. Before Christ's death, the disciples were like young students, being carefully nourished with the message. After Christ's death, resurrection, ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, they are now not merely waiting to be fed, they are to go out and be nourishment for others. The Second Vatican Council strongly emphasized this. Being mature in the faith is a requirement of the gospel, and as adults, we all have our carefully thought-out, reflected upon, and prayed-about views and insights into this shared task we share in. We are encouraged in this by the assurance that the Lord will return (Acts 1:11) because he is alive (Eph 1:20). But we are also alert, for at that time he will ask us to give an account of the talents he has entrusted to us, and the fruits we have been able to produce,"** with our work and cooperation. Jesus' ascension tells us to "stop standing there looking up into the clouds;" There is work to be done. And, there is no time like the present. In his earthly ministry, Our Lord was in an urgent hurry to bring his gospel and his ministry to all people. He now entrusts this ministry to us, through the abiding presence of his Spirit. There is no time to lose. God wants us to be about his business right away, and, reassuringly, always giving us the 'very present' assistance of God's Holy Spirit abiding in us. To listen to the whole Sunday Mass each week (including homily) from Surfers Paradise Catholic Parish, please visit this link: Liturgy for you at Home (by SPCP) - https:- soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks. (REFERENCES: FR. PAUL W. KELLY;**Gutiérrez, G. and Dees, C. (1997). Sharing the Word through the liturgical year. 1st ed. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. P. 111; MISSION 2000 – PRAYING SCRIPTURE IN A CONTEMPORARY WAY. YEAR c. BY MARK LINK S.J; A BOOK OF GRACE-FILLED DAYS - 2010. BY ALICE CAMILLE) | 
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