The Ascension of the Lord – Seventh Sunday of Easter

~ Thanks to all who contributed to the tornado relief in last weekend’s special collection.  You may still donate by marking your donation “tornado relief” or by giving directly to Catholic Charities STL. The Annual Catholic Appeal continues, and St. Margaret of Scotland Parish is not where we should be, so may I encourage you once again to make your donation or pledge to the Annual Catholic Appeal, which funds the ministries and charities of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Thanks for your generosity to those most in need.    

We have come to the final days of the Easter Season! Today is the great feast of the Ascension of the Lord, and this week, we pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church and the world as we await the great feast of Pentecost, the final day of Easter, next Sunday. For your prayerful reflection during these days, I offer you these words from St. Oscar Romero, canonized a Saint by Pope Francis in 2018.  During his three years as archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero became known as a fearless defender of the poor and suffering. His work on behalf of the oppressed earned him the admiration and love of the peasants he served and, finally, an assassin’s bullet.

Money is good, but selfish persons have made it bad and sinful. 
Power is good, but abuse by humans has made it something to fear. 
All has been created by God, but humans have subjected it to sin. 
And so Christ’s ascension proclaims that the whole creation
will also be redeemed in him, 
because he will give the meaning of all that God has created, 
and at the end of time (in this will consist the final judgment) 
he will place at God’s feet the great adjudication of good and evil. 
Evil will be eliminated definitively
and good will be taken up in the eternal glorification of Christ.
The Lord’s ascension also marks the glorification of the universe. 
The universe rejoices, money rejoices, power rejoices,
all material things – farms and estates, everything –
rejoice because the day will come when the Supreme Judge
will redeem from sin, from slavery, from shame,
all that God has created and that humans are using for sin,
for affront against their fellows.
The redemption is already decreed,
and in his power God has raised up Christ our Lord.
Christ gone up to heaven is a witness to final justice.  — May 7, 1978

It will always be Pentecost in the church,
provided the church lets the beauty of the Holy Spirit
shine forth from her countenance. 
When the church ceases to let her strength rest on the power from above –
which Christ promised her and which he gave her on that day – 
and when the church leans rather on the weak forces 
of the power or wealth of this earth, 
then the church ceases to be newsworthy.
The church will be fair to see,
perennially young, attractive in every age,
as long as she is faithful to the Spirit that floods her
and she reflects that Spirit through her communities,
through her pastors, through her very life.  — May 14, 1978