Our Lady of Fatima

Some of the Church’s decisions about changing the liturgical calendar are unfortunate. I am personally of the opinion that moving Ascension Thursday to Sunday is unfortunate because it emphasizes the mystery of the Ascension at the expense of the actual historical event. Jesus did not just ascend to heaven “at some point” after His resurrection and before Pentecost. Jesus ascended to heaven forty days after His resurrection. Ash Wednesday is our forty day marker for Lent, Ascension Thursday is our forty day marker from the Resurrection. Just as your life is to be transformed by conversion and penance for forty days leading up to the Lord’s Passion and death, so your life should be transformed by the resurrection of Jesus for forty days leading up to the Ascension. Hearing about what happened to the disciples of Jesus when they ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead, hearing about how He was entrusting a mission to them, all of those experiences and that history have an important impact on our faith.

Perhaps what is most significant is how Jesus now leaves His disciples alone for ten days before Pentecost. Just as He disappeared from their sight when He was placed in the tomb, then appeared to them again at His resurrection, now He will disappear from their sight again for ten days before His Spirit appears to them in tongues of fire on Pentecost. The first time Jesus disappeared into the earth in death, the disciples were sad, confused and afraid. They did not know what to do – some of them doubted, and they hid from the Jews. Now the second time that Jesus departs from them and says, “I am going to the Father,” they know they are to wait for His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Consoler. Ten days the Apostles now understand they are to wait and pray earnestly for the Gift of the Spirit. The Spirit will bring them the strength and boldness they need to carry out the mission entrusted to them by Jesus. The Spirit will come upon us as well, let us pray often these coming days, “Veni Sancte Spiritus” “Come, Holy Spirit.”

BEDE:

As to why there had to be “a little while” when they would not see him, “and again a little while” and they would see him, he added the reason, saying, “Because I am going to the Father,” as if he were saying unmistakably, “After a little while I am going to be hidden from your sight within the closed space of the grave, and again after a little while I am going to appear for you to look at, after the sovereignty of death has been destroyed. This is so that I may now return to the Father, since the divinely arranged plan of my taking mortality on myself has been fulfilled, together with the triumph of my resurrection.”¹

CHRYSOSTOM:

But then, if one examines, these are words of consolation: “Because I go to the Father.” For they show that his death was only a translation. And more consolation follows, for he does not say merely, “A little while and you will see me no longer” but adds, “A little while and you shall see me.” In this way he shows that he would return, that his departure would be for a brief time only and that his presence with them would be everlasting. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 79.1.²

BEDE:

But this discourse of the Lord is also appropriate to all believers who are striving to arrive at eternal joys through the tears and distress of the present [life]. They rightly lament and weep and are sorrowful during the present [time], since they are not yet capable of seeing him whom they love. As long as they are in their body, they recognize that they are on a journey and [absent] from their fatherland and kingdom. They have no doubt that they must reach their crown by labors and contests. Their sorrow will be changed to joy when, after the struggle of this present life is over, they receive the prize of everlasting life, about which it is said in the psalm, “Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.”³

TERTULLIAN:

If we rejoice with the world, it is to be feared that we shall also mourn with the world. But let us mourn while the world rejoices, and we shall afterward rejoice when the world mourns.⁴

Footnotes

HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 2.13. Elowsky, J. C. (Ed.). (2007). John 11–21 (p. 211). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Elowsky, J. C. (Ed.). (2007). John 11–21 (p. 211). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 2.13. Elowsky, J. C. (Ed.). (2007). John 11–21 (p. 212). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
ON IDOLATRY 13. Elowsky, J. C. (Ed.). (2007). John 11–21 (pp. 212–213). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Daily Readings

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
by USCCB on November 23, 2024 at 9:30 am
Reading Rv 11:4-12 I, John, heard a voice from heaven speak to me: Here are my two witnesses: These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain. They have the power to close up the sky so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying. They also have power to turn water into blood and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them. Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city, which has the symbolic names “Sodom” and “Egypt,” where indeed their Lord was crucified. Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days, and they will not allow their corpses to be buried. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and be glad and exchange gifts because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth. But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.” So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on. Responsorial Psalm Psalm 144:1, 2, 9-10 R. (1b) Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!Blessed be the LORD, my rock,who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!My mercy and my fortress,my stronghold, my deliverer,My shield, in whom I trust,who subdues my people under me.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!O God, I will sing a new song to you;with a ten stringed lyre I will chant your praise,You who give victory to kings,and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock! Alleluia See 2 Tm 1:10 R. Alleluia, alleluia. Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel. R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel Lk 20:27-40 Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” And they no longer dared to ask him anything. Readings for the Optional Memorial of Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro, priest and martyrReadings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Columban, abbotReadings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Clement I, pope and martyr - - - Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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