Homily: Feast of the Ascension

 

If we look at the scripture that addresses the Ascension, it is no surprise that we find several conflicts across the Synoptic writers. But I believe it is John who gives us the line that opens up for us the best way to get to the deeper meaning of the Ascension, when Christ says, “it is good for you that I am going away. For unless I go away the Spirit cannot come to you.” In essence, Jesus seems to be making a connection between absence and presence - that it is necessary for absence to take place before we can be opened to presence. For this Feast Day really teaches us so much more about our life and about our loving God. What is that?  Check it out…

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Homily: Ascension of the Lord

The Feast of the Ascension brings to mind all the historic art that shows Jesus ascending upward on a cloud, with the disciples looking towards heaven. It makes for great art and reflects the cosmology of those times, but if we stop there, we totally miss the whole concept of what the Ascension means to you and me today.  So what is that?  Check it all out…

Click here for a podcast of the homily

Click here for the text of the homily

Click here for the readings of the Sunday

Ascension Thursday

If it has been 40 days since Easter it must be Ascension Thursday, a Solemnity of the Church. It is the day we commemorate the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven.
 

In the words of Richard Rohr:

The Ascension is about the final reunion of what appeared to be separated for a while: Earth and Heaven, human and divine, matter and Spirit. If the Christ is the archetype of the full human journey, now we know how it all resolves itself in the end. “So that where I am, you also will be” (John 14:3)

It is no surprise that most artist renderings of the Ascension show the eyes of the crowds looking upward to the sky. I guess that is where heaven is supposed to be.

But as we celebrate the Feast I think it is also important that we do not take our eye off the body of Christ that dwells among us, in us, and through us. And what better example of this than the article written by my friend Mike Leach about the battle his beautiful wife Vicky has fought for so many years with Alzheimer’s. As her caregiver Mike writes, “Some people spend thousands of dollars to take courses on living in the present moment. In Alzheimer's there is only the present moment.

Perhaps on this Feast day were we celebrate the moment of the ascension of Christ, we can also take some time to recognize the daily moments in our lives where Christ dwells.