Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry - 20 May 2012

Recently I was privileged to visit Crete, and on a brilliantly sunny day I was driven on snaking mountain roads to the north coast. We paused on a mountain-side above a coastal plain. Below us the fishing port appeared tiny in comparison with the bright sky and the sparkling sea that surrounded all. You could just make out fields, houses, and roads. But compared with the vast beauty all around, human endeavour and its works looked very different.

This kind of perspective is, to me, one of the lessons of the Ascension of the Lord. 'Martha, Martha' Jesus had told one of his friends a few years before, 'you worry and fret about so many things, but only one thing is necessary' (Lk 10.41). We all need to hear that message from time to time. Many things trouble people today. Society seems unstable, the economy has soured, work is hard to find and careers are hard to forge, and children sometimes seem to their parents to come from an alien planet.

Worries can be real - there is nothing to joke about regarding illness or unemployment. And yet, our worry will usually add nothing helpful. The Ascension reminds us that if we can lift our hearts to Christ, then we will see things more clearly. We will know the truth that in good times and in bad, in difficult times and in easy times, in sorrow and in joy, we are always held in the hand of God.

God takes our concerns seriously. The incarnation tells us that. But by inviting us to rise with Christ above our world, God also invites us to get some perspective on the things that worry us. We may see things that we need to let go, and things that we need to take up. Sometimes we need to see that from the point of view of eternity what frightens us is not so overwhelming. There is a hint of this in the second reading, where the Ephesians are reminded that Christ is far above 'every Sovereignty, Authority, Power or Domination, or any other name that can be named' (Eph. 1.21). This is a reference to angelic powers, which were not always thought of in terms of light. People sometimes thought of these as strange beings who could determine their fate, and they were afraid of them. The writer to the Ephesians reminds his listeners that there is no need to be afraid: these powers do not reach into the soul centred on Christ, and indeed, have no power against the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus. It is not difficult to think of strange forces in our own time, economic and cultural, which can make us fearful. But then we think of Christ, and his living presence in each of us, and we are strengthened and reassured.

Even the disciples needed to learn the lesson of learning to see the world and their concerns in a different light. In the first reading today we find them stuck in the same old mode of thinking, wondering about the political kingdom (Acts 1.6) when Jesus has spent the past three years inviting them to a very different kind of power. No wonder there is that touch of humour at the end of the reading when they are chided by the angels: why stand there gaping into the sky, say the heavenly visitors. The disciples are stuck and it will take the overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit to get them out of the rut.

Fr Terry Tastard is Parish Priest of St Mary's, East Finchley, in north London.