Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons - May 17th 2026

Folio 184 the Ascension

Seventh Sunday after Easter

The period between the Ascension and Pentecost is always a slightly strange one, in that we have celebrated the Lord's leave taking and wait in a kind of vacuum for that great outpouring of the Spirit on the nascent community which becomes in time what we know as the Church. This period may seem slightly artificial as the reality of the experience of the Resurrection, appearances of the Risen One, and Ascension may have been more immediate than the way we celebrate them in our liturgical framework, although the 40 day gap until the Ascension became the accepted reference point giving us our historical and liturgical calendar for Eastertide.

Yet the chronological time between the Lord's Resurrection and Pentecost is clear, coming as it does fifty days after Passover. So for us this time between Ascension and Pentecost can become a preparatory period, where we too open our hearts and minds in a formal way by prayer and also acts of Charity, to open ourselves anew to receive the strengthening grace and gift of the Holy Spirit.

It is also a good time to revisit the memories of all who have died, known and loved by us, they too are present with us whenever we turn to the Lord in prayer and the veil between now and the Kingdom is lifted a little. This is the consolation of our faith. Our gospel acclamation today gives us that sure and certain hope found for us as Jesus says in…'the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.lI will not leave you orphans; I will come to you'. (Jn 14:17,18) Thus in faith Christ's promise of accompaniment with us all our lives is a given one, boosted for all of us, by that abiding Spirit who remains for ever.

In the gospel of today, in that long prayer to the Father, Jesus declares that he will now be glorified, and that in this act of Divine Love , we to whom he has been revealed, will be given eternal life: 'Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ'. (Jn 17:3) Whilst this is part of the great mystery of the Kingdom that is to fully come, nevertheless each one of us can touch and taste the mystery being unveiled each day in the words of scripture, in those acts of kindness and love to all creation, in our interior prayer and in the food and drink of the Eucharist.

Whilst we remain in the world until that day when we finally go home, in this prayer of Jesus we receive an abundant blessing that covers us with his love each and every day, a love that will be fanned into flame by the Spirit, present to us at all times and in all places. May these words of Jesus be with us as we rise and as we lay down each day for the rest of our lives: 'And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are '.(Jn 11:11)

Lectio Divina

Thomas Merton

"This is the grace of Ascension Day: to be taken up into the heaven of our own souls, the point of immediate contact with God." Heaven is where God is present. He is present within each of us, closer to us than any human being. So when we are looking for God, there is no need to look up into the sky, as we often do, but rather to turn our glance inward… To rest on this quiet peak in the darkness that surrounds God."

Hildegard of Bingen

"Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around Him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honour. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground, and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God."