At Jesus’ Ascension he promises disciples, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.”
Jesus is known as a teacher. He listens, he learns, he observes and he shares his thoughts about all that he receives. He engages with people. He shares meaningful knowledge. He is not moralistically preachy, certainly not dictatorial. He doesn’t test listeners for their adherence to the letter of the law. There’s a Spirit about him – a freeing, inspiring Spirit. He tells people interested is such a Way of life to live on in that same Spirit. A life in the Spirit frees us from dictatorship and frees us for leadership. Living on in Jesus’ Spirit that frees us for leadership is the teacher Paulo Freire (1921-1997). Freire’s most freeing and thus revolutionary writing was Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire called the Spiritual power of people emerging as leaders, conscientization. Conscientization nurtures a thoughtful awareness of our shared social reality under oppression, our education to understand how it operates as a system, and our action to transform our oppressive society and thus realize our full humanity. As Jesus and Freire knew, conscientization is “dangerous,” for the oppressed but also for the oppressor. “As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate rights”, they endanger their own humanity. They do it to themselves. We observe the dictatorial and hence dehumanizing personality – despicable, sad, laughable, twisted, confused, injurious, and deadly – of Donald Trump, various administration personnel, and, to lesser degrees, garden variety MAGA members. Dictators and their minions always combine control with ignorance. They influence us to accept their inevitable dictatorial rule. They therefore must oppose teachers and teaching. They censor speech, ban books, rewrite history, attack journalists, and more. The danger for we the oppressed, as we come into our conscientization, our Spiritual power able to convert the oppressor, is that the process can “reveal our own fear of freedom.” Oppression becomes routine, even comfortable. We cling to the devil we know as we fear the devil we don’t know – while we live absent our Spiritual power. As we embrace our Spiritual power and express our humanity we “take away the oppressors’ [control] to dominate and suppress” us. We experience our Spiritual power and we know it’s revolutionary. Freire was imprisoned and exiled for expressing his revolutionary Spiritual power. The same Militaristic system that knew Jesus was a danger, knew Freire was too. Freire kept being dangerous to the system – thinking and writing and taking risks. Are we a danger to the system? We can be with every engagement. Our communion energizes our freedom. Social media is not a waste of time, any more than a visit with friends, a trip to the library, the Post Office, the doctor’s office, or being on the job, or any other engagement is. It depends on the degree to which we listen, learn, observe and then share meaningful knowledge during each engagement, specifically about this current oppression. We refuse to be controlled and coerced into ignorance. We’re determined to express our Spiritual power. It’s revolutionary.
“It is necessary that the weakness of the powerless is transformed into a (power)… For this to happen, a total denouncement of fatalism is necessary. We are transformative beings and not beings for accommodation.” (Paulo Freire)
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, inspire my revolutionary power so that I am always rooted in love.
Question: In what ways am I neutral and thus on the side of the oppressor?
May 17, 2026 Gospel Matthew 28:16-20 Feast of the Ascension