By Gayle Somers, Catholic Exchange - On Ascension Day, Jesus gives His apostles, a group of men singularly lacking in influence, a worldwide mission. How would they be able to pull this off?... St. Luke tells us that as Jesus prepares to depart from His disciples and be taken up to heaven, He reminds them that God has always had a plan to save the world—a plan which was written in the Old Testament Scriptures over the course of centuries... Many of these prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus’ time on earth, but not all of them. What remained was for God to send His Spirit to renew the earth, long promised in passages like Isaiah 44:3, Ezekiel 36:26, and Joel 2:28-29. ...