Acts 1:1-11; Ps 47:2-3, 6-9; Eph 1:17-23; Mt 28:16-20

“The promise of the Father” is the Holy Spirit.  Last week we celebrated the promise with the sacrament of confirmation for seventeen of our young community as bishop Mario Aviles placed the Chrism oil on their heads.  The disciples were to “wait for the promise” after the ascension of the Lord.  How long must they wait?  Here is a hint, “how long is a Novena?”  They waited in in prayer for nine days and on the tenth day came the promise to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

 We will celebrate his coming in the Holy Spirit next Sunday as Pentecost Sunday.  Forty days after the resurrection day happened on Thursday but the Church allows for the celebration to be recognized on day forty or on the weekend.  Novena prayers commemorate a period of waiting for the Lord in prayer for his promise.  The promise is his coming to be with us until the end of time. 

As Jesus ascends to the Father in today’s reading “two men dressed in white garments” appear to the disciples with a question for all of us “why are you standing there looking at the sky?”.  When we seek God, we look to the heavens and sometimes think and feel God is far off from us” and we may even question “does God hear our prayer?  The promise of God is that he with us!  He is with us in the Holy Spirit, he is with us in the Eucharist, and he is with us as he comes to us in others in who he is also present.   

For the disciples they were still thinking and wondering if Jesus was “going to restore the kingdom to Israel”.  Their vision of a kingdom was an earthly kingdom to the Jewish people.  They did not hear Jesus tell Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn. 18:36).  Where then is this kingdom or what is it?  Thy kingdom come is what we pray for in the “Our Father”.  Thy kingdom comes as a “Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him” who we trust and believe in.  In the knowledge of him truth is revealed to us and we are given a vision of life, liberty and love in him.  We love living, we love freedom, we love to be loved then Jesus is the fullness of this desire.  In him we put on the mind of God and find meaning not only in our joys but also in our suffering.  In him we grow in virtue and sanctity as we respond to his call and do his will.

Jesus comes to restore his kingdom of saints for heaven.  Are we there yet?  What is holding us back from receiving the fullness of his grace through the Holy Spirit to be saints?  For some it is ignorance of him for not seeking him who is waiting on us. They include the unbaptized, un-catechized, the agnostics raised without faith in a God.  They fall into the category of “you don’t know what you don’t know” but in ignorance do the best they can.  In today’s world of communication however ignorance of truth is not a justified excuse for many.   “Go and teach all nations” has surrounded the globe in a missionary spirit. 

For some it is resistance knowing the God of our ancestors but still saying “not yet”.  I am not yet fully committed to God because I am still living for me.  They include the “lukewarm” baptized both in the Catholic church and in other separated Christian denominations that lack the fullness of truth.  The lukewarm still seek to build a kingdom in this world yet the world has never produced a kingdom that lasts forever.  When we focus on simply building our own kingdom it will come to an end and then what?  God provides hope to fulfill his promise of heaven and the road to it goes through purgatory for nothing impure can enter the kingdom of heaven.  Purgatory is our time to be purified by loving him as we have failed to love in this world. 

Tragically for others it is a rebellion against surrender to God to be their own god.  These take on the persona of their own sins not just falling into sin but become the sin they are attached to possessed by the demon of their sin.  It is a reminder of when Jesus says “not all” are going to enter the kingdom of heaven.  It is a tragedy by choice of the will and we pray for the conversion of sinners before it is too late.  The promise is for all to convert from sinner to saint while there is still time. 

The saint knows “his call” given from God.  We each have a calling to exercise our saintly purpose in this world.  The greater the knowledge of God the more our calling is revealed to us in which to serve him for our good and the good of others.  The saint receives the “riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones”.  An inheritance comes after the death of someone and Jesus died on the cross that we may receive the riches of our inheritance.  They come as gifts of the Holy Spirit and they come with “the surpassing greatness of his power”.  The gifts are like powerful tools but unless we allow them to serve their purpose, they are waisted opportunities sitting in storage and we become like seeds planted on poor soil failing to grow and give fruit. 

The eleven disciples did as Jesus asked going to Galilee.  They saw Jesus and worshiped him BUT “they doubted”.  What is wrong with this picture?  After all that Jesus did, miracles, exorcism of demons, healing, even raising the dead back to life and now seeing him resurrected and they doubted.  This is us in the fullness of our humanity.  Even when we know there is a God, when life happens and not all goes well, we find ourselves questioning and even doubting.  Has not God revealed himself to us during our life that we may see the hand of God in all and though all or have we not come to him and received him in all our daily walk of life? 

The gift of the Holy Spirit comes to us as it did to the first disciples with a commissioning to go out to all the world and tell the good news.  The good news is Jesus is alive and he comes to deliver the promise of the Father in our own journey of faith.  Live the journey as a daily walk with Jesus and when the evil one desires to create doubt in us we will respond with “there is no doubt” in the promise of God the Father, in the Son, and through the Holy Spirit.  So let us go out, let us live the promise with courage not fear, with faith not doubt, and with purpose to be all God is calling us to be.