Homily
Solemnity of the Ascension
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
20 May 2012
Daily Readings
Audio
When I give spiritual counsel to people who are having a bad Lent, I always tell them that how you end is the most important thing. I say the same for Advent as well. Sometimes we get off-track is this preparatory seasons, and rather than throw in the towel, we do what we can to end Advent and Lent as well as we can. A good start, and a good spiritual game plan for growth, is important during these seasons, but how you end is more important than how you began.
What about Easter then? Yes, that's right, you heard me correctly - how about Easter? We are still celebrating Easter - more than 40 days into it - and we have another week to go still. Actually when you look at the Easter holdover solemnities - the solemnities of the Most Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi, which we celebrate before finally reverting to Ordinary Time, we have another three weeks plus to go. If you think keeping your Lenten penances for forty days was hard, how much harder is it to remain in party made - rejoicing and drinking in the graces of Easter, living in the new power and life of the Lord's Resurrection - for 50 days plus? So I ask you - sincerely - how is your Easter celebration going? Are you going to make it to the end?
Just as we have to work like mad to keep Advent from caving in too soon to gift-giving and Christmas parties, and we have to fight to keep Lent from caving into spring break, so also we have to keep the great Easter season from caving into summer. We have a little ways to go folks, and as in everything in life, how we started was important, but how we end the Easter season is even more important
It is important on this Ascension Sunday which turns our meditation sharply toward the coming gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, to think about all the ways Jesus has been present to us in the Easter season through the gift of His Spirit. As far as I know, none of us here tonight saw the Risen Lord during the Holy Season of Easter. No one that I know was able to put their hand in his side to test the truth of the Resurrection. Yet by the power of the Holy Spirit I confess as your priest that I have been a witness to the Lord's Resurrection throughout this glorious Easter season. I have seen the Risen Lord in his body the Church through the many baptisms, first communions, weddings, graduations, and today, especially, through the ordination of new men to serve the Church as priests and deacons, who will make Jesus really and fully present for decades to come by calling down the Holy Spirit in the Holy Eucharist. Woe to me if I do not have the same excitement and courage of those first disciples to go out and to proclaim to others - I have seen the Risen Lord - for by the power of his Holy Spirit, I have seen him over and over and over this Easter season. Just as it seemed I never left the confessional during the Lenten season, so also in this Easter season time has flown by as I move from one Easter sacrament to the next. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
This my friends, is what it means to end the Easter season well. Because of the Ascension and Pentecost, we are not gnostic Christians, those who hold onto secret resurrection appearances and magic tickets for getting into heaven. No, quite the contrary, we rejoice that it is better for us that Jesus has gone home to heaven, to the heart of His Father, so that he can prepare a place for us there, but also that he might send the fullness of His Holy Spirit upon the Church. For through the surpassing power of the Holy Spirit, the truth of his Resurrection is visible to all people, and by that same spirit we are called to be witnesses and apostles and evangelists and teachers of this truth. St. Paul tells us that Jesus did not ascend to the Father to get away from us, but so that he might fill his body, the Church, and through it, all things, in a more perfect way, through the gift of His Spirit. And as we have heard in the Gospel, Jesus has been true to his promise to bless his Church today and throughout the centuries, with the signs and healings and miracles that she needs to continue her great mission.
So why shouldn't our celebration be getting greater my friends? Why shouldn't we turn the music up a little louder, for Jesus tells us that it is better for you that I go? For Jesus our Lord is not going on vacation, even though he deserves one - not to a galaxy far, far away where even our Hubble telescope cannot find him. He's not trying to get away from us, although who could blame him for trying? He ascends not to a far away dimension of time and space, but into ultimate relationship and reality, into the heart of love, into the heart of His Father. Just as on the cross he was lifted up to show he had entered into the heart of darkness to redeem humanity, He ascends today taking with him that humanity. In the Incarnation Jesus began his mission to fill humanity with divinity; in his glorious Ascension, he begins to fill heaven with the humanity he received from us. So let's not gaze at the sky, let's await the Holy Spirit together, and in the fullness of his Spirit let us endeavor to live in the exact time and circumstances of our earthly lives our vocation, and journey with our Risen Lord to the heart of ultimate relationship and reality, to the heart of His Father. Through the gift of the Spirit, let us complete the good work our Lord has begun in us. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Solemnity of the Ascension
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
20 May 2012
Daily Readings
Audio
When I give spiritual counsel to people who are having a bad Lent, I always tell them that how you end is the most important thing. I say the same for Advent as well. Sometimes we get off-track is this preparatory seasons, and rather than throw in the towel, we do what we can to end Advent and Lent as well as we can. A good start, and a good spiritual game plan for growth, is important during these seasons, but how you end is more important than how you began.What about Easter then? Yes, that's right, you heard me correctly - how about Easter? We are still celebrating Easter - more than 40 days into it - and we have another week to go still. Actually when you look at the Easter holdover solemnities - the solemnities of the Most Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi, which we celebrate before finally reverting to Ordinary Time, we have another three weeks plus to go. If you think keeping your Lenten penances for forty days was hard, how much harder is it to remain in party made - rejoicing and drinking in the graces of Easter, living in the new power and life of the Lord's Resurrection - for 50 days plus? So I ask you - sincerely - how is your Easter celebration going? Are you going to make it to the end?
Just as we have to work like mad to keep Advent from caving in too soon to gift-giving and Christmas parties, and we have to fight to keep Lent from caving into spring break, so also we have to keep the great Easter season from caving into summer. We have a little ways to go folks, and as in everything in life, how we started was important, but how we end the Easter season is even more important
It is important on this Ascension Sunday which turns our meditation sharply toward the coming gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, to think about all the ways Jesus has been present to us in the Easter season through the gift of His Spirit. As far as I know, none of us here tonight saw the Risen Lord during the Holy Season of Easter. No one that I know was able to put their hand in his side to test the truth of the Resurrection. Yet by the power of the Holy Spirit I confess as your priest that I have been a witness to the Lord's Resurrection throughout this glorious Easter season. I have seen the Risen Lord in his body the Church through the many baptisms, first communions, weddings, graduations, and today, especially, through the ordination of new men to serve the Church as priests and deacons, who will make Jesus really and fully present for decades to come by calling down the Holy Spirit in the Holy Eucharist. Woe to me if I do not have the same excitement and courage of those first disciples to go out and to proclaim to others - I have seen the Risen Lord - for by the power of his Holy Spirit, I have seen him over and over and over this Easter season. Just as it seemed I never left the confessional during the Lenten season, so also in this Easter season time has flown by as I move from one Easter sacrament to the next. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
This my friends, is what it means to end the Easter season well. Because of the Ascension and Pentecost, we are not gnostic Christians, those who hold onto secret resurrection appearances and magic tickets for getting into heaven. No, quite the contrary, we rejoice that it is better for us that Jesus has gone home to heaven, to the heart of His Father, so that he can prepare a place for us there, but also that he might send the fullness of His Holy Spirit upon the Church. For through the surpassing power of the Holy Spirit, the truth of his Resurrection is visible to all people, and by that same spirit we are called to be witnesses and apostles and evangelists and teachers of this truth. St. Paul tells us that Jesus did not ascend to the Father to get away from us, but so that he might fill his body, the Church, and through it, all things, in a more perfect way, through the gift of His Spirit. And as we have heard in the Gospel, Jesus has been true to his promise to bless his Church today and throughout the centuries, with the signs and healings and miracles that she needs to continue her great mission.
So why shouldn't our celebration be getting greater my friends? Why shouldn't we turn the music up a little louder, for Jesus tells us that it is better for you that I go? For Jesus our Lord is not going on vacation, even though he deserves one - not to a galaxy far, far away where even our Hubble telescope cannot find him. He's not trying to get away from us, although who could blame him for trying? He ascends not to a far away dimension of time and space, but into ultimate relationship and reality, into the heart of love, into the heart of His Father. Just as on the cross he was lifted up to show he had entered into the heart of darkness to redeem humanity, He ascends today taking with him that humanity. In the Incarnation Jesus began his mission to fill humanity with divinity; in his glorious Ascension, he begins to fill heaven with the humanity he received from us. So let's not gaze at the sky, let's await the Holy Spirit together, and in the fullness of his Spirit let us endeavor to live in the exact time and circumstances of our earthly lives our vocation, and journey with our Risen Lord to the heart of ultimate relationship and reality, to the heart of His Father. Through the gift of the Spirit, let us complete the good work our Lord has begun in us. Alleluia! Alleluia!
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