Ascension of the Lord
Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau
Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault
Fontgombault, May 21, 2020
Eritis mihi testes... usque ad ultimum terræ.
You shall be witnesses unto Me... even to the uttermost part of the earth.
(Acts 1:8)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
My dearly beloved Sons,
The event of the Ascension comes and closes the time when the Lord was present with His disciples. After His resurrection, Christ had appeared again many times to His friends. But contrary to the three years of His public life, already He was no longer with them in a way that could be felt and seen. Now, the Ascension deprives them even of this presence.
The time is now come for the last words, the ultimate sending on mission. Three of the evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke, will remember that. As to St. John, he doesn’t evoke the moment of the Ascension, since the others had already told it before him, but he concludes his Gospel with the episode of the miraculous catch of fish, near the shore of the Sea of Tiberias.
Whereas the night had already elapsed, and they still had caught nothing, the Apostles see a man on the shore. They don’t recognize him. He invites them to cast again their nets, which get full of fish. “It is the Lord!” (Jn 21:7) exclaims St. John. After a meal of bread and fish taken around a fire of coals, Jesus asks Peter three times this question, “Lovest thou me?” Then He adds, “Feed my lambs... Look after my sheep... Feed my sheep.” (Jn 21:15-18)
