This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark: 19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. 20 But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.” Continue reading →

This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark. It is verse 18 that gives modern day Christians pause – not the second half: “They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” Disciples healed in the course of their evangelism. First, Peter and John healed a lame beggar (Acts 3:1–10). Soon after, the Holy Spirit became so present that apparently even people who crossed Peter’s shadow were healed (Acts 5:12–16). Later, the Holy Spirit validated Paul’s ministry by healing those who touched an apron or handkerchief that Paul had touched (Acts 19:11–12). Continue reading →

This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark:  “15 He said to them, ‘Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. 18 They will pick up serpents [with their hands], and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.’ 19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. 20 But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.” Continue reading →

This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark. Although virtually all of today’s scholars of the Bible believe that Mark had a purpose in ending his Gospel abruptly at 16:8, this was not always the case. Some first- or second-century Christians tried to “complete” his Gospel drama by adding scenes that they thought Mark should have added himself. Continue reading →

This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark.

The shorter ending – This ending is found after Mk 16:8 before the Longer Ending (vv. 9-20) in four seventh-to-ninth-century Greek manuscripts as well as in one Old Latin version, where it appears alone without the Longer Ending: Continue reading →

This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark. The title might strike you as an odd entry, but the gospel of Mark has several “endings.” That probably needs some explanation. In the paragraphs that follow we will briefly discuss the different endings. Continue reading →

This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark (Lectionary Cycle B). The Ascension of Jesus celebrates the Christian belief of the bodily Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. Based on the account of Acts 1:3 that the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples for 40 days after the Resurrection: “He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.” After these days, we read that Jesus was taken up to heaven. Continue reading →

Fr. Antony Kadavil, in a 2019 post from Vatican News, wrote: “The Ascension is most closely related, in meaning, to Christmas. In Jesus, the human and the Divine become united in the Person and life of one man. That’s Christmas. At the Ascension, this human being – the person and the resurrected body of Jesus – became for all eternity a part of who God is. It was not the Spirit of Jesus or the Divine Nature of Jesus that ascended to the Father.  It was the Risen living Body of Jesus: a Body that the disciples had touched, a Body in which He Himself  had eaten and drunk with them both before and after His Resurrection, a real, physical, but gloriously restored Body, bearing the marks of nails and a spear. This is what, and Who, ascended. This is what, now and forever, is a living, participating part of God. That is what the Ascension, along with the Incarnation, is here to tell us – that it is a good thing to be a human being; indeed it is a wonderful and an important and a holy thing to be a human being. It is such an important thing that God did it. Even more, the fullness of God now includes what it means to be a human being.” Continue reading →