From Sunday’s gospel: “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. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs."

Goodbyes. When we think of Jesus ascending to heaven, or seniors graduating, or perhaps underclassmen not returning to San Miguel, we tend to think of goodbyes. We wonder about those who are leaving and we pray that they will do well. But it seems as if we have no more influence or ability to help them, and knowing them as we do, we feel that, in some way, they need more from us. Brother Gerard Rummery, in reflecting on De La Salle’s death, says, “Yet even at the end of his life . . . he had exactly 100 followers. . . De La Salle must have wondered, as he lay dying, what was going to happen to these 100 people."

We know, of course, that there are now over 4,000 brothers, 900,000 students, and 80,000 lay teachers in the Lasallian world. Why? Because De La Salle, having come to understand that God established this enterprise, trusted that He would not ever say “goodbye" to it. As the gospel passage from yesterday reminds us about the apostles (and Mark’s gospel is not particularly flattering to them) who might have said “goodbye", they went forward anyway and worked with God, who continued to work with them. Or in the words of Father William Dailey, CSC, “It started with twelve . . . who were so willing to adopt his mind and his heart that they could spread this good news as a rag-tag group of not particularly well trained itinerant preachers . . . . [A]nd nothing holds you back from it."

And so here we are. The feast of the Ascension does not call us to say “goodbye." There is nothing that can stop us from keeping our mission, our ministry, from flourishing. God continues to walk with us, and so we must continue to walk with our students, our graduates, those who seek a different educational opportunity, indeed, all who have entered this community, offering ourselves “to God to help by assisting the children entrusted to you as much as he will require of you." (Med. 197.1)

Live, Jesus, in our hearts!

(Thanks to Rev. Jacek Buda, OP, homily for the Ascension, for the “goodbye" theme)