Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension. As I was leaving work Friday afternoon I mentioned to a coworker that it was going to be a busy weekend for me, which included the homily today, and the fact of it's being Ascension. "What are you planning to say?" she asked me. I replied, "What goes up must come down. Amen." She told me, "Well, that sounds like a good sermon—stick to your plan."
Actually, I can't quite let you off that easy, though honestly I've sometimes appreciated a nice short sermon. However, even my coworker friend, who grew up as a strict Protestant in South Africa, told me that I needed to explore Ascension a little bit at least since in her tradition they need Pentecost to be ten full days from Ascension. Of course there is a long tradition of Ascension being celebrated on the fortieth day of Easter, which is, in fact, the Thursday ten days before Pentecost. However, as Catholics we're not at all fundamentalists about these kinds of things.
The important thing is that we are celebrating the Lord's ascension into heaven and we are reflecting about what it means to us. It's especially important that we reflect about what it means to us now in our times and in our lives. So the good news, at least in terms of my homily, is that I'm skipping the history lesson on the liturgical celebration of Ascension Thursday, but I do believe that you ought to take the time to look into it. We tend not to know enough about the traditions associated with our faith.
In the first reading from the book of Acts, we have the story of Jesus going up to heaven. The disciples were gathered with him, and he gives them a last word. He tells them to expect the power of the Holy Spirit to come upon them and to make them his witnesses. Probably he tells them good-bye too, we don't really know. I think of the picture—some of you are familiar with it—of the suntanned, smiling Jesus. He says one last farewell and then he disappears over the mountain. He goes away from the sight of the disciples leaving them gazing upward and longing for his presence. Immediately in the story two rather peculiar looking fellows show up and inquire what they're doing looking up at the sky. It's here that the disciples receive the instruction that they need to be prepared for something more—something greater and quite beautiful.
Being prepared, having the expectation for something more, may be precisely what the Solemnity of the Ascension has to say to us where we live today. This is probably especially true if our practice of the faith seems to have something missing in it. It's important that we be honest with ourselves about it. Perhaps we should be praying all the more to be full of a sense of excitement, anticipation, and expectation for the Lord's presence in our lives. Indeed, the image of baptism, which we find in the gospel account of the Lord's final moments with his disciples, is one that symbolically invites us to be immersed in the things of God, in the divine milieu where we find his presence permeating our lives altogether and making holy each of our daily common experiences. Thus we must ask ourselves to what degree Christ is priest, prophet, and king in our lives.
It shouldn't seem strange at all that the one who went up into heaven will send forth from heaven with the help we need most. Indeed celebrating Ascension is our way of recounting the faith that the Church has always maintained: that we look to heaven where Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father as his only begotten Son, and that we look to and believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to make our lives new and thus give witness to Jesus.
The Solemnity of the Ascension is a feast among feasts that celebrates the Holy Trinity and prepares us to receive God's help and comfort both in the gift of the Holy Spirit and in the promise of the Lord's everlasting presence. When it comes to the faith, it's okay to be looking skyward. As you may guess, I do it all the time. It's a given: what goes up must come down.
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