Have you ever noticed that many prayers are named by their first words? Like the “Our Father” or the “Hail Mary” or the “Glory Be” - I just have to say the first two words and you know the exact prayer I am talking about.
But the Mass is a prayer that is named by its final words. In Latin, the last words spoken at the Mass were “Ite, missa est” which in classical Latin means “Go, the dismissal is made.” So this word “missa” or “dismissal” is where we get the word for the highest prayer in the Church, the Mass, it comes from the last words of the prayer, not the first like most every other.
That is important today as we celebrate the Ascension. We heard Ascension accounts from both Matthew and Luke. In Matthew's Gospel, at the time of the Ascension, “Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.””
This is a dismissal too, Jesus says “Go, therefore,” get to work! And then in Luke’s account we hear the rest of the story, Luke records that after Jesus “had said this, as [the Apostles] were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as He was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?...””
So after Jesus dismissed them, they just stood there looking up at the sky, so Jesus had to send a couple of Angels to dismiss them to “Go” as well, at the very least to go back to Jerusalem to pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
See it’s easy to be a Christian here inside these walls, to be patient and kind and caring here in Church, but the rubber really meets the road outside these walls, that’s why every Mass ends with a similar dismissal, “Go!” Go and do the work that Jesus Christ is asking you to do, you can’t stay here, the work is out there.
But Jesus is not just telling us to do His work on our own. God does not leave us orphans. He sends the Holy Spirit to be with us. He gives us the Body and Blood of Jesus to strengthen us and make us one with Him. He pushes us out there to do His work in the world but He is right there with us spiritually.
And it is interesting, we all have our own gifts and talents, we are all very different, and we will go about doing this work of God differently even though the source is the same.
St. Francis de Sales describes the world as a “world of hearts,” a “garden of hearts,” and just like a garden there are lots of diverse plants, diverse but growing from the same soil, the same water and everything, and de Sales says that is how God created us, at the root the human heart is good, because its root reaches God. Our hearts are made to beat with God’s, yet we are all a little different.
That diversity is good and necessary. St. Francis de Sales encourages us to “Be what you are, but be that well.” “Be what you are, but be that well.” We have everything we need to grow in goodness and in holiness, but it starts with “The Little Virtues” - the relational virtues, like patience, gentleness, cordiality, etc. - our hearts must practice these to grow in this great garden of love.
In the 2nd reading we heard Paul pray for the Ephesians saying: “May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him. May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call”
As we receive Jesus in the Eucharist today, “may the eyes of our hearts be enlightened” to answer God’s call to “Go” and do His work in the world. Amen.