21 May 2020
Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter / Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
“A little while and you will no longer see me,
and again a little while later and you will see me.” (Jn 16:16)
[Paul] went to visit [Aquila and Priscilla] and, because he practiced the same trade,
stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. (Acts 18:3)
After appearing to the disciples for 40 days, Jesus is taken from their sight. Today this mystery is celebrated throughout the world, and in certain dioceses of the USA. In many US dioceses it will be celebrated on Sunday. Yet, even so, the readings for this day as on Easter Thursday still help us contemplate the Ascension. Hopefully each day this week we are becoming more attentive to how we may see the Son who sits at the right hand of the Father “in unapproachable light”. (1 Tim 6:16) Today’s reading from Acts 18 leads us to consider the workplace as a place to seek and to find manifestations of the Lord.
Aquila, a Jewish man expelled by the emperor Claudius from the home he had made in Rome, together with his wife Priscilla, had moved to the economic powerhouse city of Corinth. Being a point of connection between the Aegean Sea to the East and the Ionian Sea to the West, there was a lot of business in Corinth. As the population grew with the business, many people moved there who were not from Corinth and didn’t know anybody in Corinth. Work was the point of connection. It was because Aquila was a tentmaker and St. Paul was as well that they got to know one another.
We spend a lot of time with our coworkers. Tensions at one’s job may lead to simply wanting to get away from anything (or anyone) that reminds one of work when the work day is finished. Yet, as many see now, having been physically separated from working with others, being a coworker involves more than sharing a place of work. In that place one shares one’s time, ingenuity, and thus shares one’s life. How might the Lord have been showing me His presence in the relationships formed through my job? Let us pray for the grace to grow in friendship with these people as a way of honoring the God who creates them, redeems them, and offers them the hope of heaven in His Ascension.