Following is the text of the meditation by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, marking the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, year B, dated May 9, 2024:

 

The Gospel passages we have heard during this Easter season have repeatedly told us that Jesus came to bring life in abundance, give true peace, and leave us with his joy.

 

But where can this be found? How is this promise fulfilled?

 

Today's Gospel passage (Mark 16:15-20) makes us witness a great paradox.  

 

On one hand, the passage recounts Jesus' return to the Father: indeed, in v.19 we read that “the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God”.

 

Jesus fulfilled his mission, which the Father sent him into the world for: he gave his life for his friends, so that everyone can hope again to enter a relationship of love and trust with the God of life.

 

On the other hand, we witness a radical intensification of the presence of Jesus amid his disciples: He acts together with them and confirms his Word by the wonders worked by the hands of his disciples. (Mark 16:20)

 

It is not only a matter of intensification, but also of a total enlargement of boundaries: twice the universality of the Christian message is emphasized, which is intended for the whole world and every creature (Mk 16:15); and the disciples, when they leave, they preach everywhere. (Mark 16:20)

 

The Lord, indeed, departs, yet he also remains. He departs, but His departure is not equivalent to being on earth without Him.

 

On the contrary, His very ascension to heaven is what enables Him to dwell everywhere on earth.

 

How can this happen? 

 

It happens thanks to his disciples: The Lord returns to the Father, but only after giving them the task and the opportunity to spread God's gift to man, for every man.  

 

The Lord leaves the world, and the disciples leave to take his presence everywhere. 

 

This is the great mandate of the Lord's disciples. 

 

There are three elements we can emphasize. 

 

The first is that the disciples are called to love the world, to love the earth, people, and life. They are called to have a real passion for Man, a great faith that all can be saved.

 

Just as God loved the world, so they are called to do the same.

 

Their relationship with God does not enclose them in an intimate, private space, but, on the contrary, it opens their lives wide to the other. It charges them with God's love for every man.

 

There is no disciple of the Lord who is not marked by love for the World.

 

The second emphasis is focused on the signs that accompany the disciples' mission in the world. If we pay attention, we see that all the signs speak of victory over death: poison will not harm them, serpents will not cause them death, and demons will not have power over them. (Mark 16:17-18)

 

The disciples' mission in the World is to take power away from death, to wrest from death the ability to hold men captive.

Where death seeks to take life, extinguish joy, and stifle peace, the disciples have a powerful antidote, namely, their love for the World.

 

This will be the new language (Mark 16:17) that the disciples will be able to speak, that all can understand, that of love which conquers death. 

 

The third element is the following: from where do the disciples get the strength to fight against death?  

Jesus makes this clear right away when he says that these signs will accompany those who believe; (Mark. 16:17) and only in his name will they be able to perform such acts. Strength comes from faith and faith alone. 

 

Hence, it will not be an easy battle, for death will not easily leave the field. But those who believe in the Lord will experience that He does not abandon His own and indeed grants them His victory, His own life, new and eternal. 

 

So, let us return to the initial questions: where does the Church experience the abundant life, the joy, the peace of the Risen One? 

 

We might answer thus: that our joy is full when God's gift for our lives does not stop with us but, through us, reaches our brothers and sisters. 

 

If we withhold God's gift for ourselves, the gift ends with us and is lost. 

 

But if we become inflamed with God's passion for the world, then we experience in our own lives that death is conquered, because God's gift fills us only if we know how to share it with everyone. 

 

+ Pierbattista