Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
Today, we celebrate Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, which took place 40 days after Easter. The Gospel passage (cf. Mt 28:16-20), which concludes the Gospel of Matthew, presents the moment of the Risen One’s final farewell to his disciples. The scene is set in Galilee, the place where Jesus had called them to follow him and to form the first nucleus of his new community. Now those disciples have traversed the “fire” of the Passion and of the Resurrection; at the visit of the Risen Lord they prostrate themselves before him, although some remain doubtful. Jesus gives this frightened community the immense task of evangelizing the world; and he reinforces this responsibility with the command to teach and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (v. 19).
Jesus’ Ascension into heaven thus constitutes the end of the mission that the Son received from the Father and the beginning of the continuation of this mission on the part of the Church. From this moment, from the moment of the Ascension, in fact, Christ’s presence in the world is mediated by his disciples, by those who believe in him and proclaim him. This mission will last until the end of history and every day will have the assistance of the Risen Lord, who assures: “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (v. 20).
His presence brings strength during persecution, comfort in tribulations, support in the difficult situations that the mission and the proclamation of the Gospel will encounter. The Ascension reminds us of Jesus’ assistance and of his Spirit that gives confidence, gives certainty to our Christian witness in the world. He reveals to us the reason for the Church’s existence: the Church exists to proclaim the Gospel, for this alone! So too, the joy of the Church is proclaiming the Gospel. The Church is all of us baptized people. Today we are called to better understand that God has given us the great dignity and responsibility of proclaiming him to the world, of making him accessible to all mankind. This is our dignity; this is the greatest honour of each one of us, of all the baptized!
On this Feast of the Ascension, as we turn our gaze toward heaven, where Christ has ascended and sits at the right hand of the Father, we strengthen our steps on earth so as to continue our journey — our mission of witnessing to and living the Gospel in every environment — with enthusiasm and courage. However, we are well aware that this does not depend first and foremost on our strengths, on our organizational abilities or human resources. Only with the light and strength of the Holy Spirit can we effectively fulfill our mission of leading others to know and increasingly experience Jesus’ tenderness.
On this Feast of the Ascension we all wish to renew our commitment to live and make known the gift that the Lord wanted to give to His Church, through the great gift of living in the Divine Will. It is a gift that we must first of all welcome and live, despite our miseries (we know very well that it is not an effort of ours, but a Grace that God gives us), and finally we must make it known to humanity.
On October 10, 1928 Jesus told Luisa that everything He told her, both about His Incarnation and about His Divine Will, and on other things, was nothing but outpourings of His contained love. But after pouring itself out with Luisa, His love continued to remain repressed, because it wanted to raise its flames higher in order to invest all hearts and make known what He did and wanted to do for creatures; but since everything He told Luisa lies in hiddenness, He feels a nightmare over His Heart, which compresses Him and prevents His flames from rising and making their way. This is why, as we read the writings on the life in the Divine Will Jesus feels the nightmare being removed from Him, and the weight that compresses the flames of His Heart being lifted. And so It made us hear the repetition of all those excesses of love;
His constrained love is a pain for Him, of the greatest, which renders Him taciturn and sad, because, since His first flames have no life, He cannot release the others, which devour Him and consume Him. And therefore, to those people who want to occupy themselves with reading by making known Jesus’ many secrets, He will give so much surprising grace, strength in order to do it, and light in order to know, themselves first, what they will make known to others. He will be in their midst, and will guide everything.
Il suo amore represso è per Gesù una pena delle più grandi, che lo rende taciturno e mesto, perché non avendo vita le sue prime fiamme, non può mettere fuori le altre che lo divorano e lo consumano. E perciò a chi si dedica alla lettura e a far conoscere questi segreti d’amore, Lui darà tanta grazia sorprendente, forza per farlo e luce per conoscere loro per prima, ciò che faranno conoscere agli altri. Lui starò in mezzo a loro e guiderà il tutto.
We conclude our reflection with the blessing that Jesus gave to Luisa, invoking it from Jesus also on each of us:
My daughter, I bless you with my whole Heart;
even more, I bless my very Will in you,
I bless your thoughts, breaths and heartbeats,
that you may think always about my Will,
may breath It continuously, and my Will alone may be your heartbeat.
And for love of you I bless all human wills
that they may dispose themselves to receive the Life of my Eternal Volition.
Dearest daughter of mine, if you knew how sweet it is,
how happy I feel in blessing the little daughter of my Will….
My Heart rejoices in blessing she who possesses the origin, the Life of Our Fiat,
which will bring about the beginning, the origin of the Kingdom of my Divine Will.
And while I bless you, I pour in you the beneficial dew of the light of my Divine Volition
which, making you all shining, will make you appear more beautiful to my sacramental gazes;
and I will feel happier in this cell, gazing at my little prisoner daughter,
invested and bound by the sweet chains of my Will.
And every time I bless you, I will make the Life of my Divine Volition grow in you.
How beautiful is the company of one who does my Divine Will.
My Will brings into the depth of the soul the echo of everything I do in this Holy Host,
and I do not feel alone in my acts – I feel that she is praying together with Me;
and as our supplications, our sighs, unite together, we ask for one same thing,
that the Divine Will be known and that Its Kingdom come soon.
Fiat!