My Dear People, 

Today we celebrate the feast of the Ascension of the Lord. The Lord brought a conclusion to his ministry on earth, and he returned to the Father. Now he sends the apostles to go out and make disciples of all nations. They are to carry the message of Christ to all nations through the power of the Holy Spirit. For individuals, when there is a parting, there is a death which then enables the others to go forward and take over the mission of the previous individual, such as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and St. Dominic. The disciples who were left continue to carry the mission. The Parting of the leader is made more dynamic because now the individuals must take over the mission work of the founder. 

Jesus said, “Make disciples of all nations.” This means that all people, whether Gentiles of Jews, are called to be disciples of Christ. 

The Gospel is the famous “Great Commission,” often jokingly referring to as the “Great Omission,” in reference to our failure as believers in spreading the Gospel. Actually, although great human failures have marked the spread of the Church, it still is to be found present and active on every continent, in every nation. One third of human beings profess to be Christians, one sixth to be Catholics. Even from a merely natural perspective of cultural history, the Church is a remarkable and singular phenomenon. 

Jesus’ word of the great commission (“All power in heaven and earth has been given to me”) reflects the theology of Psalm 2, the Royal Coronation Hymn of the Son of David (“Ask it of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and, as your possession, the ends of the earth” (v. 8), which is perhaps the most important psalm to the theology of the New Testament.

In any case, let us note that the Commission is not simply to “preach me as Lord and personal Savior,” as admirable as that may be, but it is to “make disciples”—which is a long-term process of formation involving self-denial (it took Jesus three years with the Twelve)—and to baptize, a reference to the sacramental ministry of the Church. Finally, the Commission is to “(Teach) them to observe all that I have commanded you,” which seems to refer to a considerably large catechetical undertaking, instructing all the nations in the hallakhah (i.e., the interpretation divine law) of the Messiah, the Son of David. In other words, The Great Commission is not satisfied by knocking on doors and passing out tracts—as good as those things may be. It is a description of the entire mission and action of the Church—evangelize, sacramental, catechetical. 

Let us consider this catechetical mission a little more closely. The words of the Gospel do not say “teaching them all that I have commanded you,” but rather “teaching to observe all that I have commanded you.” It’s like the difference between a course in hydrodynamics and a course in swimming. You ought not to learn simply the theory of buoyancy of bodies in water, but you must learn how to swim! We have sadly neglected this. With good intentions, we have taught  many people about Christianity but not how to live the Christian life. 

Something a high-ranking cardinal said in recent years struck me as relevant. He observed that very few pilgrims to the Vatican seem to have more than two children. That’s very interesting, since the use of natural methods for child spacing usually result in a family size of around six to ten. So even among Catholics devout enough to want to make a pilgrimage to the Vatican, it’s uncommon to see a witness to the Church’s teaching on openness to life. And openness to life, contrary to the way it may seem to many, is not really a side-issue or a tangential teaching, but at the deepest layer, it is intimately tied up with our understanding of divine love, the trinity, marriage, the family, and reality in general. So, this is one area in which we are not doing a good job of teaching the disciples of Christ “to observe all that I have commanded you.” And of course, there are many other examples as well. 

It's not that catechetical instruction should be stripped of intellectual content, but all of us need to be aware that, just as Christ became incarnate, so also we must incarnate the teaching of Christ—act on it, live it out. And until we teach others not simply to know it but to live it, we haven’t succeeded in manifesting the kingdom of Christ on earth. 

[Passages from Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A by Dr. John Bergsma]

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Vincent Clemente