Our Sacred Stories ~ Ascension: A Story of Letting Go – A New Beginning

Change is a reality of our lives.  Sometimes it takes us to new and even exciting places and experiences.  There are however changes in our lives that bring a sense of loss and pain.  The death of a partner or friend or a move that takes us away from the persons or places that we consider home.  Such changes, such departures are part of our lives.  Saying farewell is always painful.  But it can also be a new beginning.

One of the hard experiences in life for me has been moving from one parish community to another.  In doing so, the close ties of the community are broken and the circle of friendships that emerged in the former parish can disappear.  This is a loss, but it is part of service in parish communities, or any other setting dedicated to building relationships and community.  An example might help here.

Many years ago, shortly after ordination, I found myself working part-time in a largely Italian community in Toronto.  After almost four years, I realized that I had grown to see the parish as “my community”.  Personal relationships had grown, friendships and connections had developed so that I felt part of the families and individuals in the parish.  Then I had to move on.  What I discovered was that letting go of this community was hard.  But I also discovered that it would in fact make room for another community elsewhere to emerge.  Letting go led to a new beginning.  Over the years, there have been the blessings of many communities, many new beginnings.  Farewells were never a complete break.

The memories and the blessings of that earlier experience have remained.  Gifts of all the communities served continue to mentor my present experiences.  Many of those whom I met over the course of the past five decades continue to be in contact, in friendships, visits, phone calls and emails.  The new beginnings simply made the experiences broader and wider over the years.  Though we left each other’s physical presence we had not really left one another.  There is a presence that continues, a sense of being apart and yet still together, of “leaving yet remaining” with one another.

When the Scriptures speak of the Ascension, it may seem that Jesus is somehow leaving his disciples, but when we look more closely at the Gospel accounts it is evident they speak of leaving and at the same time staying.  There is a sense of Jesus leaving and yet remaining with his disciples.

The classic image of the ascension of Jesus is captured in the story that we find in the Acts of the Apostles. The writer of the Acts tells the story of the earliest Christian communities after the resurrection of Jesus.  Acts begins with the story of Jesus leaving the disciples and ascending, or put another way with the return of Jesus to the Father.  It is a story of “leaving yet remaining.”

After telling of the appearances of the risen one to the disciples and of the way in which Jesus promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, the disciples are called upon to be the witnesses to all they have heard and seen, that is, to the message and the mission of Jesus.  Filled with the promised Spirit, they are to take what they have experienced to the whole world, to the ends of the earth.  Jesus leaves them yet remains among them.  Thus, they are to be the ongoing presence of the risen Jesus for our world.

In every Eucharist we hear the words Do this in memory of me.  As a community of faith we recall in living fashion Jesus’ whole life, death and resurrection, what we call the Paschal Mystery.  Each time we gather at the Table sharing Eucharist we celebrate together that Jesus who has returned to the Father, continues through the Spirit to be with us.  Each time we celebrate together, we remember and enact this “leaving yet remaining” story as disciples of this Risen Jesus, and share this Good News with our world, near and far.