Feast of the Ascension of the Lord

Sunday, June 1, 2014
Ascension Sunday
1st Reading: Acts 1:1-11
2nd Reading: Eph 1:17-23
Gospel: Mt 28:16-20

As for the Eleven disciples, they went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Jesus, they bowed before him, although some doubted.

Then Jesus approached them and said, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples from all nations. Baptize them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to fulfill all that I have commanded you. I am with you always until the end of this world.”

D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)

Baptizing the whole world to make the Christian faith global is an ambitious gargantuan task. But we need not chicken out from this mission because Jesus has pledged his support before he ascended to heaven. Before leaving he said: “I am with you always until the end of the world.” God has already committed himself. The ball is in our hands.

There are two ways we fulfill this mission: first, by submitting our children for baptism, and second, by being faithful to our baptismal vows. There is urgency involved in the first. This is the reason why the old practice of baptizing grown-ups has given way to infant baptism. Baptism was restricted to grown-ups in the past because the emphasis then was freedom of choice understood as waiting until the candidate for baptism can choose for himself whether to embrace Christianity or reject it. But realizing the urgency of the mandate to make disciples of all nations, the Church deemed it proper to remove the restriction and even to encourage infant baptism.

There are things that cannot wait until the baby can decide for himself. Parents, for example, don’t have to wait until the baby is old enough to decide whether to drink milk or not. They are precisely there to decide what is good for the child in the meantime that the child cannot decide for himself. In like manner, the parents who are convinced that baptism confers divine adoption unto the child will give it to the child at the earliest possible opportunity without waiting until they can consult the child. They just have to see to it that safety nets are in place, such as choosing God-fearing sponsors to help them in his upbringing.

By submitting our children to baptism as early as infancy and taking seriously the task of guiding them we literally fulfill God’s command to have the whole world baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.—Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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