What do you do when “THE GREAT EVENT” is finally over? Your daughter’s wedding…your mother’s death…your graduation…the move to a new city.
You prepared. Then the time for THE GREAT EVENT came. You entered into it. Everything else dwindled to the sidelines. Everything revolved around this milestone, this great event in your life.
But then, whether the event was wonderful or terrible, it ended. It left you with a changed life.
I remember the day the last guest from out of state left after my son’s wedding…and the afternoon after my mother’s funeral…and the morning soon after my husband’s death when I looked around and realized now I lived in a new house while our farm belonged to someone else.
When THE GREAT EVENT is over, there is a deep tiredness that sets in. And an emptiness. Something seems not quite right. On this new today there is no pressing “to do” list of tasks that must be done. So what is to be done?
Nothing.
Sit. And rest. And wait.
Ascension Thursday
In many parts of the world, today is Ascension Thursday. It has been 40 days since Easter. This is the day that Jesus ascended into heaven. In other parts of the world, though today is 40 days after Easter, the liturgies of the Ascension have been moved by bishops councils to this coming Sunday. In those areas, today is Thursday of the 6th week of Easter. If you are celebrating Ascension today, you will find the readings here. If this is Thursday of the 6th week of Easter for you, you will find the readings here.
Both sets of readings are oriented toward Jesus’ readiness to leave his disciples and their anticipation of what next. I will be working from the Ascension readings because I want to talk today about the ORIGINAL NOVENA—the 9 days the disciples spend fasting and praying to prepare for Pentecost.
There was never a BIGGER EVENT in the history of the world than Jesus’ rising from the dead. Because I cannot quite imagine NOT believing in the resurrection, I cannot quite imagine what first seeing the resurrection, walking and talking with the risen Jesus, would have been like. But it must have been wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!
And seeing Jesus ascend into heaven must have been mind boggling.
What now? What next?
Would I have watched Jesus ascend with joy? Or confusion?
Jesus Parting Words
What would it mean to me if I heard Jesus say:
“Go into the whole world
and proclaim the gospel to every creature.”
What would have gone through my mind if I heard Jesus say:
“…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
throughout Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.”
When I put myself on the Mount of Olives as Jesus ascended, I imagine myself staring into the sky with the other disciples. I can feel fear rising in the pit of my stomach as Jesus disappears from sight.
What now?
It seems to me that the Ascension was THE transition link between Jesus present in Jerusalem and Galilee and Jesus present “until the end of time.” I live in “until the end of time.”
Because Jesus ascended, He can be with me now, here, in this 21st century time. Anywhere in the world that you are just now, Jesus can also be with you! This is the great gift of the Ascension. So what will Jesus and I do today? What will you and Jesus do?
As the Ascension was an ending, so it was also a new beginning.
Luke begins his Acts of the Apostles with the Ascension:
“When he had said this, as they were looking on,
he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.
While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going,
suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.
They said, “Men of Galilee,
why are you standing there looking at the sky?”
Jesus had given the disciples directions for at least the next step:
“While meeting with them,
he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem,
but to wait for ‘the promise of the Father
about which you have heard me speak;
for John baptized with water,
but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’”
Baptized with the Holy Spirit?
What was that?
If I had been there, I would have wondered what that meant. And I would have returned to Jerusalem with the other disciples to fast, pray, and wait for this baptism of the Holy Spirit without knowing what I was waiting for.
Indeed, the disciples prayed for the next nine days. Their prayers for the gift of the Holy Spirit formed the original “novena.” Novenas are a common form of Catholic prayer. Novena simply means “nine.” The disciples’ prayers were the first novena.
Coming Soon: New Wine, New Containers
The Church continues today to give us a novena for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Here it is in a form I have most often seen, but the form doesn’t seem to be as important as the content: pray for the Holy Spirit to come.
And fast these nine days, too.
Perhaps the disciples remembered what Jesus had said early in his time with them:
“The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to him and objected, ‘Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.’” (Mark 2: 18-22)
What was this new wine and new wineskins?
What is next for me? For you?
These last three weeks God has taken me out of my normal routines and comfort zones. No GREAT EVENT has happened in my life, but multiple significant small events have combined to put me spiritually and emotionally in a time of transition. I can easily see myself on the Mount of Olives staring up in the sky.
For I am wondering “What next?”
Spiritually, I’m in the upper room praying and waiting…yearning for new stirrings of the Holy Spirit in me. God has closed some doors for me—firmly. He is opening others.
It is a new wine in new wineskins time.
It is time to make a serious effort to fast and pray, that I enter fully into my what next.
Is this a transition time for you? Or would you simply like MORE of the Holy Spirit? Or are you convicted by how far away from God our world is these days?
It is time to make a serious effort to fast and pray.
Join in praying—around the world—the original novena, prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
On you.
On all of us.
On our world.
Prayer:
Come Holy Spirit, renew the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle within them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.
THANKS
to John Ciribassi for writing the Thursday post the past two weeks! It is good to be back. While A Catholic Moment is not my primary work for God, it remains an important one. Let us fast and pray now for whatever God sends us next.
