Here are two women—Mary and Elizabeth. They have similarities—both were ordinary Jewish women, working in the field and making living day by day in the first century people thought that all of the important and significant things were happening in Rome or in Athens, or in the other centers of political power and commerce. They were insignificant and unknown peasant women. And both also never gave birth before. Mary was too young and had no relationship; Elizabeth too old and sterile. We could imagine how they were astonished to know that they were pregnant. It was never expected.

Life full of unexpected events takes place to ordinary people. A powerful earthquake shattered Haiti last January and claimed more than 230,000 Haitians’ lives and two million people displaced. Likewise, evil cancer came to my mother in March and she had to be operated and take twelve chemos. It is still going on. Struggles of the earthly sojourn that go beyond our capacity overwhelm us. Suffering that we want to avoid with all intention seems to be an important part of life.

Pope John Paul 2 sends the Apostolic Letter to all the faithful called “Salvific Doloris.” It is about the salvific meaning of human suffering. The pope talks about the significance of human suffering in light of its constructive outcomes. Through suffering, we are led to God who is our advocate and our brothers and sisters who suffer like us. Suffering bonds us to God and one another.

Let’s look at Mary who was overwhelmed by the unexpected pregnancy that could cause her death and destroy her family. Mary accepted it by saying, “May it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). And then she set out and traveled to Elizabeth in haste. Mary’s fear of pregnancy and pang of childbirth did not stop her to serve her cousin in need. This is the model of Christian faith, standing for the poor even though they themselves have many difficulties. Our ordinariness does not stop us to go in haste and serve others in need.

We are Mary who has helped many Elizabeths in Haiti. Some of us prayed for them; some sent money; some went to Haiti to volunteer and to stay with them. I am here today to recognize your significant presences in the midst of Haitians’ suffering. They ask me to say to you thank you. They want me to pray for you. Your generous monetary response exceeded 200 million dollars by the end of May and has fed 900,000 people and 90,000 students and 10,000 children. I have met several Haitians in Immokalee, Florida last March. They were shocked to know the incident in Haiti and tried to use every means to find out their family’s safety. Many were not able to go back. I remember their faces and suffering.

Catholic Relief Services on behalf of us went to Haiti to relief their suffering and will remain with Haitians many more years because we have seen CRS immediately went to Indonesia and other areas devastated by Tsunami in 2004 and finished its five-year rebuilding project in 2009. They are still there to bring hope to the suffering. CRS President Hackett says, “ We have worked in Haiti more than 50 years and we intend to remain alongside Haitians for many more years to come.” It is the same Mary did. When Mary went to Elizabeth, she stayed with her about three months until Elizabeth gave birth to John the Baptist. CRS supported by us will remain in Haiti until they are able to find new life coming out of the unexpected and overwhelming event.

Mary’s Manificat resonates in our heart because it is an anthem for social justice; it is her love for people rather than power or politics. Mary praises God to lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things because God remembers His promise of mercy forever. Today as we celebrate Mary’s assumption, we are rejuvenated by the fact that we Christians set out and traveled to Haiti in haste to serve the poor. We relief their pain; we recover their strength; we rebuild their home, hospital and school; we resurrect their hope in the midst of suffering. It is our Manificat; it is our celebration of the Assumption because Mary did the same to Elizabeth and us.

The ascension of the Lord heralds a new age: the age of the church. Luke ends his gospel with the account of the ascension and he begins his second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, where he left off in the gospel: with the ascension of Christ. The ascension is the springboard that casts the mission of the church into front and center. Jesus had to ascend before the mission could go forward. What is the mission? The Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations. The mission is simply to be witnesses of these things.

“There are no proofs for the existence of God, there are only witnesses.” Since we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of God is with us, prompting us, teaching and challenging us to new growth. We are witnesses to the incredible power of God’s love and action. The power of the Spirit is unleashed in our midst through the witness of God’s action in our lives. To witness God’s action in our lives, we the Living Person run. Here is my witness when I tried a first full marathon in Cleveland in 2006.

The last Sunday revealed all aspects of the weather in Cleveland. It was raining when I woke up at five o’clock in the morning. It was quite chilly, so I hesitated to wear short sleeves. But no choice; the Living Man must go. At 7am, we started running with ten thousands runners wearing the wet shoes because of raining. Nevertheless, we were not afraid of moving forward for we were together encouraging one another. After running couple of miles, it became very pleasant to run in a cool weather. With the thirteen mile sign the sun came out. The sky and the earth met together, twinkling so brightly; all runners were blessed to run on such a beautiful day. I had kept a pretty good pace under 7:30 per mile before the eighteen mile. But when I ran to the lakeshore in the point of the nineteen mile, my body became exhausted. At the same time, the wind strongly blowing against the runners made the race more difficult. I couldn’t control my body, so that I literally dragged my legs. The last four miles seemed endless. I had to give up a qualifying time within 3:10 to go to the Boston Marathon at that point. Many runners passed by me. One woman who had an artificial leg flew by me. I seemed to be lost in the downtown Cleveland, keeping reciting Hail Mary. There was nothing left: cheers from the crowd and sightseeing in the downtown disappeared, and I was only able to think moving my exhausted body forward one step by one step. Finally, when I saw the finish line, it seemed there was no one around, namely, peculiar quietness. Frankly I had dreamed for a long time how to run through the finish line: raising my fists up as a sign of victory or big smiling responding to the cheering crowd. But I didn’t do anything what I had thought before. When I passed through the finish line, I was silently making a sign of cross from my mouth—I couldn’t raise my one hand to the head—to the chest and from the left shoulder to the right shoulder. I said, Amen! As if the race was a prayer, my long prayer ended with the sign of cross: the shift from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. I was moved not by I but by God and became deeply humbled in the last few miles. I stood still for a while because my soul as well as my body was overwhelmed by God’s presence in me. As St. Irenaeus said, the glory of God is not only the living man but the man who is trying to live fully.

This is a witness that a runner suffered and rose from the dead and repentance for the forgiveness of sins, that is, self-centeredness, and proclaimed Jesus to all spectators by making a sign of cross at the finish line.

Gandhi said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” Being witnesses means to be a change that we wish to see in the world. Running a marathon is not a just cool thing to do but often a painful thing to achieve. It takes a tremendous time and energy of runners who become someone bigger than themselves because “The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets from it, but what he becomes by it.” Whether people acknowledge or not, completing a marathon is a personal witness to self and to God. Runners become witnesses of life and hope. It doesn’t happen every day.

The glory of God is the living person; through our race, we will be witnesses of Jesus Christ’s message in Cleveland, throughout Madagascar, and to the ends of the earth. St. Paul, he himself a runner, prays for the Living Person in the second reading, “May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope, (the hope of being witnesses)…what are the riches of glory, (the glory of God through our body)…and what is the surpassing greatness of Jesus’ power for us who believe, (God’s power for us who believe in ourselves made in the likeness of God).” Amen.

Our thoughts in this present life should turn on the praise of God, because it is in praising God that we shall rejoice for ever in the life to dome; and no one can be ready for the next life unless he trains himself for it now. So we praise God during our earthly life, and at the same time we make our petitions to him. Our praise is expressed with joy, our petitions with yearning. We have been promised something we do not yet possess, and because the promise was made by one who keeps his word, we trust him and are glad; but insofar as possession is delayed, we can only long and yearn for it. It is good for us to persevere in longing until we receive what was promised, and yearning is over; then praise alone will remain.

Because there are these two periods of time - the one that now is, beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy - we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now, while the time after Easter which we are celebrating at present signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future,. What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess. This is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the meaning of theAlleluia we sing.
Both these periods are represented and demonstrated for us in Christ our head. The Lord's passion depicts for us our present life of trial - shows how we must suffer and be afflicted and finally die. The Lord's resurrection and glorification show us the life that will be given to us in the future.

Now therefore, brethren, we urge you to praise God. That is what we are all telling each other when se say Alleluia. You say to your neighbor, "Praise the Lord!" and he says the same to you.  We are all urging one another to praise the Lord, and all thereby doing what each of us urges the other to do. But see that your praise comes from your whole being; in other words, see that you praise God not with your lips and voices alone, but with your minds, your lives and all your actions.

We are praising God now, assembled as we are here in church; but when we go our various ways again, it seems as if we cease to praise God. But provided we do not cease to live a good life, we shall always be praising God. You cease to praise God only when you swerve from justice and from what is pleasing to God. If you never turn aside from the good life, your tongue may be silent but your actions will cry aloud, and God will perceive your intentions; for as our ears hear each other's voices, so do God's ears hear our thoughts.

"Jesus proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem."

This is the beginning sentence of Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Jesus proceeded up to Jerusalem! What is Jerusalem? Why does Jesus need to move to the city where he could be killed? Apparently, Jesus knew what was going to happen to him. He made several predictions of the Passion, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and everything written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon; and, after they have scourged him, they will kill him” (Luke 18:31-33). Nevertheless, he proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem. Why?

On March 24 last Wednesday, we celebrated the 30^th anniversary of Bishop Oscar Romero’s death who was killed by the military in El Salvador because he denounced the violence of the military regime and asked the soldiers not to follow the inhumane orders to kill others. He knew his life was threatened and yet he continued to preach the gospel of life. He said, “I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will rise again in the people of El Salvador. If God accepts the sacrifice of my life, then may my blood be the seed of liberty and a sign that hope will soon become a reality.”