Luke describes for us the scene in Acts 1 where Jesus is giving them final instructions:
Do not leave Jerusalem but wait there for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
This sounds promising and exciting to the disciples: finally something is going to happen. They are used to hearing Jesus talk of the Father and all, so this is familiar territory, but they can also feel in the air that there is like a feeling of expectation, of real power about to burst into something big.
In this special moment with Jesus we have the last recorded words addressed to Jesus by the disciples. They ask Him:
Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?
What a revealing question! They have been with Jesus for three years and they still don't have a clue of what is Jesus talking about. They heard but didn't get it. They saw Jesus dead (from the distance) and risen, but still don't get it. It's like they are living in parallel worlds, no matter how long they journey they never meet. The apostles are still thinking of an earthly kingdom where they will have political power.
I think that this is the need that Jesus is addressing in the Ascension: as far as the disciples see Him "there", with the eyes of their bodies, they won't get what the whole Jesus' thing is about. There has to be a shift in their consciousness, a huge one, and that Jesus will accomplish through the Power of God at work within, the gentle, humble, invisible Holy Spirit on Pentecost day.
They certainly needed it. But not only them. Doesn't this also sound like our communities and our churches today? How many of us today believe that we are mature disciples of Jesus and yet we live out of a consciousness which is a parallel world with Jesus' and the Gospel and closer to that of the apostles in this passage? What are our expectations and desires? What do we labor for with our life? We have probably received the sacrament of confirmation, but have we also entered, with Mary, the womb of prayer that will give birth to the Spirit in our life?
In yesterday's readings we heard (John 16:23-28)
I came from the Father and have come into the world;
again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.
This is an overview of Jesus' journey, and it's also an overview of our own personal journey as Jesus has shown us with His life. We come from God, we are in the world but not of the world -we belong with God, and we journey back to God. And yet we live and judge and talk and feel as if we come from this earth, belong in this earth, and will remain here forever and ever. This is how we approach events and decisions both personally and socially. We manage to create and live in a parallel world which is not Jesus' or the Kingdom He came to bring.
This is why we need so badly an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon each one of us individually, upon the Church, and upon the world. We need to awaken to the consciousness of our real purpose and destiny in God. We have limited time and endless opportunities. God is with us in this journey but we need to feel the need for a change of heart and mind, and open ourselves to the groaning of the Spirit within always yearning to fill us with the humble power of the Kingdom.
During this week before Pentecost, let us unite in prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit upon each one of us, our families and communities, the Church, and our world.
Come Holy Spirit!
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