The Seven Appearances of Jesus after the Resurrection: #6 The Ascension and the Commission

By Fr. Ron Will

Welcome back to Precious Blood Renewal Center for this 6th Week of Easter Meditations.

As we gather for this video prayer across the miles today, there may be pockets of businesses and churches opening up near you, but we are still a long way from overcoming this coronavirus pandemic. And so we join in prayer for ourselves and the many, many people affected by this pandemic.

I hope that you are getting more comfortable doing this kind of meditation on your own. I will lead you a few more weeks, but you are learning to do this on your own, and I hope that you are doing so in between these videos.

The reason I am leading you in Easter meditations to help you encounter the Risen Jesus Christ more personally. But I learned recently that some workplaces encourage their employees to meditate during this pandemic for emotional reasons. Some workplaces even provide a quiet room where their employees can go for a while, center themselves, and get in touch with their own version of their higher power. They come back to work in a better frame of mind.

Today we will join the Apostles as Jesus calls them to the Mount of Olives, where after spending 40 days with them after his resurrection from the dead, he commissions them and then leaves them as he ascends into heaven.

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God entered humanity. Although God had created humanity, with Jesus’ birth, God entered into humanity, not just into one human body, Jesus, but into all humanity. That humanity died with Jesus on the cross and rose with Jesus to a new way of being.

Now in the Ascension of Jesus, Jesus draws our humanness into God. We are all continually being raised in God.

I invite you to enter more deeply into our meditation by prayerfully singing along with me the two short phrases below. We will chant the couplet three times.

There is a longing in my heart for you, oh Lord, to reveal yourself to me.
There is a longing in my heart for love, I only find in you, my God.

As I read from The Acts of the Apostles 1:3-12 invite you to close your eyes and visualize the action in your mind’s eye.

Let us begin.

[Fr. Ron Will, a Precious Blood priest and spiritual director, is a graduate of Catholic Theological Union and Creighton University’s School of Christian Spirituality. He has a special interest in helping form intentional disciples of Jesus, encouraging others to go spiritually deep-sea diving to explore a deeper relationship with God, and walking with people as they dive into the ocean of God’s mystery actually experiencing God rather than simply dipping one’s toe into the water.]

Other Video Series:

• Easter Meditations 2020
• Taize Prayers
• Lenten Meditations 2020

Image above is The Ascension by GIOTTO di Bondone (b. 1267, Vespignano, d. 1337, Firenze), Public Domain.