The Ascension of Our Lord

Friends in Christ,

Earlier this year, thankfully prior to the current lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, I was able to travel with my seminary class to the Holy Land for a 9 week pilgrimage. To be honest I did not really want to go at first. I was worried about being in a place so foreign and since I am not a very adventurous eater, I was worried I would not have anything to eat. However, I did not want to miss out on this experience with my class, so I put my reservations aside and went anyway. After about a day and a half I was glad that I did. Palestine is a beautiful country and almost everyone we met was very warm and welcoming to us and the food was pretty good too. Throughout the next 9 weeks I would travel all around the land where the Patriarchs and the Prophets lived, where Moses and the Israelites spent 40 years getting to, and where the earthly life of Christ took place. I was able to visit and pray at the sites of the Annunciation and Visitation, I was able to touch the very spot where our Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem. I walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem in the footsteps of Christ on his way to be crucified on Calvary and I was able to pray in the empty tomb where he rose from the dead. I was atop Mount Tabor where he was Transfigured and the Mount of Olives where he ascended into Heaven.

My friends, today we celebrate the great Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord. We commemorate our Lord going up to heaven to be with the Father. This marks the end of his visible-physical presence here on earth among us. But we need to remember that he is still here, physically here in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, though we cannot see Him as we would have when He was among us here prior to his ascension. We should not think of the Ascension as Christ leaving us for two reasons. First, his ascension is the Son returning to the Father and preparing a place for us in heaven. We must use the time now, and especially when our churches reopen for confession, to rid our lives of sin so we can join him in heaven when we are called home to the Father. Secondly, we need to recall that God would soon send down the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. The Holy Spirit is still with us today, guiding the Church. We need to make sure we take the time in prayer to discern how the Spirit is calling each of us to serve God and his Church.

In our Epistle today we hear Saint Luke recap what he had written in his Gospel. He tells of Christ going up to heaven on a cloud and that the Apostles “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.” This echoes what we hear in the Gospel from Saint Matthew when Jesus says “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” The followers of Jesus are not to just sit around after Christ returns to Heaven, but they are to go out to all the peoples of the world and make disciples of them. This is what we are all called to do. We are all called to be missionary disciples of Christ, going out to those in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and families and to bring to them the Good News that Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead. 

My friends on this Sunday in which we commemorate the Ascension of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, let us recall His last words to the Apostles: “I am with you always, until the end of the age.” No matter how lonely or spiritually desolate we may feel at this time, Christ has not abandoned us. He will always be with us. One week from today we will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Let us use this next week to truly prepare ourselves to receive the Holy Spirit. Let us read over and pray the promises that were made at our baptism and renewed at our confirmation where we received the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Let us now ask God to send us the gifts of Knowledge to know His love for us, and Fortitude, so we may continue to persevere in these spiritually challenging times.