The Ascention marks a pivotal moment transitioning from the earthly mission of Jesus to the inception of the Church's mission, directed by Jesus from heaven. It is a call to action for all believers to participate actively in the Church’s mission.

To allow ourselves to experience God’s love takes discipline and intention on our part. Our lack of self-esteem, our woundedness, our busyness, and the many distractions of life, can dull our experience and sensitivity to God’s loving presence.

Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. We cannot produce the fruit that God expects from us if we are not connected to Jesus, the vine.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows us intimately, and wants to establish a direct and personal relationship of intense love with each one of us. Jesus also says that his sheep know him. Can we say we really know him? He is the Good Shepherd but are we good sheep?

The Gospel today, the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus and their return to the Eleven in Jerusalem, gives us three ways to recognize and experience the risen Jesus.

The resurrection is the confirmation of all Jesus’s preaching and actions. It affirms that he is who he said he was. It is the confirmation of his message.

This morning, we enter into the experience of Mary Magdalene and Simon Peter and John at the empty tomb. We bring all our loss and disappointment, suffering and hopelessness to be transformed by the Resurrection of Jesus. They were astonished, shocked, surprized, daring to hope. We can enter into this amazement as we experience new life and hope in the Resurrection of Jesus. So much in our lives may seem so final, so beyond hope, so full of darkness, but the Resurrection of Jesus gives us the assurance that there is an empty tomb ahead, and it is filled with light.

By living through the events of this week, we can each consider whom we identify with most. Can we see ourselves in the woman who anointed Jesus with the alabaster jar of expensive ointment? Have there been times when we have been more like the vengeful religious leaders, or the jeering crowds, or the shrewd Pilate, or the fearful disciples? Perhaps we can identify with the denying Peter, or the hopeless and despairing Judas. Perhaps we can identify the faithful women and St John who stayed with Jesus to the end, or perhaps the crucified criminals on either side of Jesus.

Like the Greeks in today’s readings, we must act on our desire to encounter Jesus. And we must persevere because it is our fulfilment and our joy that are at stake.

Looking at the crucifix and seeing the lengths that God goes to win our salvation and heal us of our sin, is meant to change us. Jesus took on the horror of the price of our sin to save us from this same horror.

If God is our ultimate good, then all other things will fall into their proper place. Getting our relationship with God right is the key to getting everything else right in the moral life. The correct worship of God and living the moral life, that we find in the Ten Commandments, is our God-given programme for our happiness and flourishing as human beings. 

Our Lenten desert experience is about being purified and washed clean, trained and disciplined in testing and in recognising the great temptations in our lives, so that we can give ourselves completely to God.

We who receive the ashes today seek to convert our hearts again to the Lord, who suffered, died and rose for our salvation.

In this story of the healing of the leper, we can place ourselves into the healing hands of Jesus. We can be the one kneeling before him, begging him. And we can hear his beautiful words spoken to us: “I do will it, be made clean”. We can experience first-hand, the pity and compassion of Jesus.

Remember, Jesus wants us to be a Church, a community, and we cannot be fully Christian apart from a real relationship with those who God has given to us in our community.

When we acknowledge Jesus as the true and ultimate authority of our lives, we know the truth and we experience radical freedom.

This is the message of Jesus that made such an impression on his listeners and why it continues to touch our hearts today and make them burn within us.

God calls each person individually and directly. We are not just numberless sheep for God. He knows us personally and calls us by name into a loving relationship with himself. He makes us collaborators, giving us a mission.

God interacts with each of us personally and individually, calling us by name. We are encouraged to respond to this call by deepening our relationship with Jesus, despite our imperfections, doubts, and the distractions of the world, so that we can find true happiness and fulfillment in God.

Today, we acknowledge and renew within ourselves that our baptism has put us into a profound grace-filled relationship with God.