RAOEN shares the homily of Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord on 17 May 2026 while in Bangkok, Thailand where he joined the RAOEN gathering on Communion, participation, and mission in the biome: Weaving local voices into global climate witness. Cardinal David is the Vice President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) and Bishop of the Diocese of Kalookan in the Philippines.
In the Filipino language, the word for “eternal” is walang hanggan. Literally, it means “no end,” but taken another way, it means no borders, no boundaries – a fitting image for our celebration of the Vigil Mass for the feast of the Ascension of the Lord. (It is actually the 40th day after Easter, but we celebrate it on the 7th Sunday of Easter, in preparation for Pentecost, which concludes the Easter season.)
Ascension is not just about Jesus going up. It’s about Jesus taking up with him our humanity beyond time and space. When the Son of God ascended, he didn’t leave us behind. He brought with him our wounded, mortal humanity and creatureliness with him into glory. As Saint Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:53, “This perishable body must clothe itself with the imperishable, this mortal body with immortality.” And the reason Paul says in Romans 8:22 why “all creation is groaning in labor pains.”
The Lord did not ascend to distance himself from us but to draw all of us closer to God, to break down all barriers that separate us from God, and from one another, and from the rest of our common home.
That’s why, perhaps not by coincidence, the Church also marks this day as World Communications Day. Because communication – true communication – is only possible when we are willing to cross borders, to reach beyond boundaries. (Pedro Walpole and I were sharing the other day about the artificial borders of nations and that in most instances these are created by empires.)
Nowadays, even the physical boundaries of seas, oceans, mountains, and glaciers can be crossed over by modern means of transportation and communications. It is often the less visible boundaries that are more difficult to cross: the boundaries of culture, religion, ethnicity, economic class, politics, and ideology. These are the things that often separate us from one another. Boundaries that can cause tensions, misunderstandings, and wars.
We see this currently happening in the Middle East and many other parts of the world. They can happen right within our own homes, communities and Churches. You surely have followed the conflict of narratives in the social media about the Senate, the impeachment, the escape of Bato De la Rosa. Ironically, in an age when communication technology has advanced at lightning speed, when we can so easily connect with anyone in the world at the click of a finger, people still feel isolated, unheard, or misunderstood.
Technology can’t fix the human heart. People can have the fastest wifi connection in the world and still fail to reach each other if the exchange of messages is lacking in care and compassion. You can have all the right platforms but still cause division if what is communicated is fear, distrust, anger, or resentment.
That’s why the Ascension is not just about going “up” for us. More importantly, it’s about going out. In the longer ending of Mark’s Gospel, the evangelist tells us that before Jesus ascended, he instructed his disciples: “Go out into the whole world and proclaim the Good news to all creation.” Take note – not just to all nations or all peoples, but to all creation!
“Go out” is the favorite exhortation of the late Pope Francis and it means to dare to leave our comfort zones, to speak new “languages” that are not just spoken languages, but the language of the heart: empathy, respect, and love.
In the Acts of the Apostles, when the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, the first thing that happens is communication. People receive tongues of fire – divine language – to allow us to speak not just with our tongues of flesh, which, despite the most advanced AI translators, keep us from crossing over our political, ideological and cultural borders. Only the Gospel, if genuinely proclaimed, allows us to break through borders. The Spirit teaches us to listen, to see where others are coming from, to speak with kindness even when we might disagree, to walk the synodal journey together.
Ascension teaches us that Christ empowers His disciples to break through every wall, every distance, every border that divides heaven and earth, and that now, by the power of the Spirit whom He bestows at Pentecost, He enables us to do the same for one another. He invites us to live as people with no borders. He allows us to communicate with courage and compassion, and to bring the Gospel not just to the ends of the earth, not just to the depths of each other’s hearts, but to the whole biome that cries in labor pain for the birthing of the cosmic Christ.