We celebrate today, Christ's ascension to His eternal glory in heaven and express our Christian hope that where He has gone, we will one day follow, to live forever in the kingdom of Our Father (Lk 24: 46-53).
Jesus' ascension is about hope, even if it seems like a figment of a creative imagination. It is through hope that we desire heaven and eternal life as our happiness. Our hope is based on our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help and blessings of the Holy Spirit (Catechism of the Catholic Church No 1817).
Without hope many of us can fall into the abyss of despairing cynicism. Many of us at some point in our lives are going to be confronted with this mystery of eternal life after death.
My father fell seriously ill about 20 years ago. He had a high fever. His health deteriorated leaving him with a stroke, incapacitated and bedridden. He was unable to respond or communicate. For almost two and a half months my family stood watch in hope that he would be nursed back to health and even pushing it, with the hope of full recovery. I had high hopes; high, apple pie in the sky hopes! My father's lack of any responsiveness daunted us. We were never quite certain if he was aware of our presence or what was taking place around him. It became a dark and trying time for us all. Suffering, remorse and guilt were the dominant emotions that would plague me. I suffered to see my father suffer. I felt terrible remorse for never communicating and reassuring my father 'Daddy I love you and I am sorry for ever hurting you.'
Often I would lie next to him, talking him to recovery or perhaps boredom. But there was never any sure way to satisfy myself that my father had understood me or had even forgiven me. Then suddenly the impossible happened. One night my father struggled to speak, but the bulky feeding tubes stifled his efforts and made his speech inaudible. What he could not say in words, he more than compensated with his eyes. Tears began to flow as he looked at each one of us with distinct recognition of our presence. He even attempted to move and his body began to heave as we all embraced him. We were now all convinced that my father had 'risen' from his illness. His brief transfiguration was a joy for all of us. He was on the road to recovery. The following morning I maxi-taxied to school, brimming with high hopes; high, apple pie in the sky hopes! Just before lunch I was told that my brother was looking for me. I instinctively knew that my father had passed away. His physical death would years later, lead me to recognise that there is hope, and it is very reassuring and comforting when we profess in the Creed: "He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and His kingdom will have no end."
Gerard & Lydia Chung
Marriage Preparation Ministry
even abandon the demand for PR, the very thing that gives his party the votes it musters in an election. The element of opportunism that exists in all post-election coalitions is sometimes more blatant than that. The 1996 post-election coalition in Trinidad and Tobago, between the UNC and the DAC, was not based upon principle, policy, political affinities or personal preference. It was a deal struck by leaders without reference to the electorate. It was a deal that made a political football of the presidency. It could just as easily have been a deal between the PNM and the DAC. Post-election coalitions of this sort are not likely to last, and this one didn't. An earlier post-election coalition in Trinidad and Tobago was not even intended to last. With 13 of the 24 elected seats in what was to be a 31-member Legislative Council after the 1956 general election, Dr Eric Williams did not try to find the necessary three Trinidadian allies from among the other 11 elected persons. His pre-election position had been that the PNM would go it alone. So he forced into being a coalition government consisting of the 13 elected PNM members and the seven appointees of the Crown. That it was a coalition would be less and less apparent, as the dominant party tightened its hold on power, and it was doomed to disappear as soon as Dr Williams won the battle for Cabinet rule that he had started before the election.
Pre-election coalitions are not immune to the selfishness inherent in human affairs, but they can be liberating and ennobling, because they open up possibilities for co-operation and for human growth.
Since everybody can't get all that they want, and every party cannot have its particular agenda adopted, the members have a chance to go through a burnishing process of negotiation and compromise to arrive at an agreed policy statement, and an implementation agenda to which all the parties willingly subscribe. A pre-election coalition, indeed, raises vital questions for human beings. Can a coalition of "known" persons and organisations become something new? If the mantra of change is a call from the agonised depths of the society, and if the members of the coalition are humble enough to understand that they are involved in a profound dialogue with the people, so that change and renewal apply to themselves also, the answer is "Yes." The key figures who take the lead in trying to make a new day are themselves subject to being re-made. The energy released by the coming together of the different elements can impel the new configuration and the persons in it in directions not imagined beforehand. This may make it sound as if creativity in politics is like creativity in art.
Well, it is. If a visionary prospect is not genuinely embraced, the coalition will boil back down to the same old thing. A pre-election coalition is consistent with the nature of our society. Trinidad and Tobago's ethnic and cultural diversity cries out for a government made up of representatives of all the interest groups. If we had that, fairness to all would become the supreme political value. The pre-election coalition of 1986 (The NAR) seemed to promise that. It excited the population and was called the rainbow coalition, because people who live our diversity felt that at last a political party had come into being which, to all appearances, could justly represent all groups and interests. It let down itself, but it did not kill the dream, or the need for the dream. A pre-election coalition is a natural growth in our society, but it is not made easy in our imported political system. The principle that all groups and interests should be represented has never been served by the winner-take-all, first-past-the-post system we have imitated and exploited for selfish purposes. A victory for the coalition will go some way towards instituting the fair and equitable society that the advocates of proportional representation want. If the coalition wins, it might be their destiny to govern in a manner that would remove distrust and insecurity, perform the final rites over racial voting, and lead the transition to an appropriate form of proportional representation and other far-reaching constitution reforms.
There is a mountainous sleeping policeman round the corner at the end of the stretch.
The coalition must decide early whether the members want to coalesce into one party, or whether the coalition will function better as a confederation of groups who have bound themselves to implement and safeguard a clear and agreed policy.
The latter course would build-in the presence of guards to guard the guards, and prevent a return to the monument of one-party, one-man rule that the country is pushing the coalition to shatter.
bible
"Now as He blessed them, He withdrew from them and was carried up to heaven."
(Luke 24: 51)
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The Marriage Preparation Ministry offers two programmes for couples planning to receive marriage as a Sacrament. They are Engaged Encounter and Evenings for the Engaged. These programmes are designed for couples who desire a richer and fuller life together and want to bring God into their marriage. For information call: 637-5939 / 762-9908 or email: josebarbarasalazar@hotmail.com
A Catholic Media Services Ltd feature article.