ASCENSION OF THE LORD

Dear Parishioners, 
God’s plans and timing are always perfect and correct – how could they be anything else? So when God the Father sent His Son Jesus to the earth, God planned that Jesus would have a threeyear public ministry, undergo His Passion, Death, and Resurrection, and ascend back to His Father in Heaven forty days after He rose. Also, there are really no coincidences nor accidents when we believe in God and His omniscience, His overall knowledge and control, of us and our world, and the entire universe for that matter. So it doesn’t matter whether Jesus ascended to Heaven after three, five, ten, 25, or 50 years of preaching, teaching, healing, and preparing His Apostles and disciples, there was going to be a time when He had to turn over His earthly leadership to the Apostles and preside over the developing Church from His heavenly Kingdom. God’s plan was three years, and since the Church founded by Jesus, with His delegation of the Apostles – the Roman Catholic Church – is alive and well all these centuries, we see that God’s plan of a three-year earthly ministry of Jesus was perfect – because it was from God. We as the apostles and disciples of today are called to be encouraged and strengthened by the fact that, with our faith in Christ as members of His Church, we can accomplish great things with the gifts which we have been given by God as His beloved sons and daughters. The original Apostles and disciples took up the challenge as soon as Jesus ascended from the earth, yet they were no different nor better equipped than we are to be witnesses of Jesus today exactly where we are. Even though we have not witnessed in our lives, nor will we ever, what the Apostles and disciples who knew, saw, talked with, and traveled with Jesus witnessed, we have the legacy of what these early Christians, the early witnesses, have left us. Today, we are witnesses of different things that help us to continue the work of Jesus and the Apostles. We don’t see Jesus Himself or the Apostles instantaneously healing the sick, raising the dead, changing water into wine, walking on the water, or anything like that today. But we believe this because of the testimony of our brothers and sisters in faith who actually did see these things because they happened to live at the same time and in the same place as Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary, and the longawaited Messiah, who came to save us and to show us the way to the Father and to bring us with Him to everlasting life. Jesus could not stay on Earth forever—He stayed as long as God His Father planned for Him – a perfect period of time. The Church is still here today – because God’s plans are perfect.