How will you know when to step up and begin a mission you have been preparing for? There comes a time when our maturing reaches the point where and when we must assume responsibility for the tasks that await our attention and commitment as well as have the courage and faith to move forward.
                                     
While most of the attention given to the Ascension of the Lord Jesus into heaven tends to be on its doctrinal meaning, in today’s reading from the end of the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus is most concerned with reminding the disciples of their mission after he has gone from their midst. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
 
Christ not only calls the disciples to begin a new mission he has been preparing them for, he expresses much confidence that they are ready and gives them the reassurance of his constant accompaniment. It’s as if the Ascension of the Lord is when Christ says, “Now is the time to be mature disciples!”   
 
Everything that Christ had said and done in his earthly life was shared with his disciples and forms the backdrop of the moment. In the same manner as all the other happenings in the life of Jesus among us, the Ascension makes visible his love and concern for the disciples and all who follow him. 
 
Inclusion of the disciples and us in his plans, participation in his mission and the invitation to us to a deeper relationship – union – with God are what Jesus Christ offers. We can perceive in the Ascension of the Lord Jesus a visible moment in time that reveals eternity to us as his destiny and ours and as the fruit of having loved and served him in our lives. 
 
The Ascension can only be fully appreciated by first experiencing and basking in the joy and significance of the resurrection, which ended a chapter of sadness - the crucifixion and death of Jesus – by followed by the joy of experiencing the risen Lord. That joyful experience taught them the Lord was with them always, but in a new manner. With that as a backdrop, they did not, nor should we, consider the Ascension of our Lord to be a departure or an abandonment of us.
 
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI stresses that the joy held by the disciples and their apostolic vigor clearly indicate that they were “convinced of a new presence of Jesus” after he ascended into heaven and “they are certain that he is now present to them in a new and powerful way.” His insight points out that the disciples viewed the Ascension of the Lord Jesus and his exaltation at the right hand of God to be a new manner of his presence among them and with them, a new closeness of God in Christ with them.
 
No thoughts of being forgotten troubled the early disciples. Benedict XVI continues: “‘Ascension’ does not mean departure into a remote region of the cosmos but, rather, the continuing closeness that the disciples experience so strongly that it becomes a source of lasting joy.”
 
 
The disciples found the promise of Jesus, “behold I am with you always, until the end of the age,” to be more than enough to give them joy and purpose and overcome any mistaken feelings of abandonment by Jesus.
 
More than just receiving reassurance, the disciples are meant to continue on. The love of God that Christ personified for them in the flesh was not meant to be a one-time occurrence, but a treasure to be handed on, an invitation to new life and a new way of living: actualizing in words and deeds the example that Jesus Christ has given the disciples and, through them and us, the whole of humanity.
 
When Christ ascends and returns to his Heavenly Father, some might think the moment is a conclusion. Because he loves us and invites us to be part of his mission and destiny, we can understand it all as a new beginning.