The Ascension of the Lord, Year C May 28-29, 2022

The Ascension of the Lord, Year C

Peace be with you, and welcome as we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord. Now, most of you folks know that if you count 40 days after Easter, like the Bible says, the Ascension of the Lord was last Thursday. In 1999 however, the Church allowed celebration of the Ascension on the Sunday before Pentecost. Today, there are only about six dioceses in America left, that currently recognize last Thursday as a Holy Day of Obligation and celebrate the Ascension on that day. In my humble opinion, the move from Thursday to Sunday was a good idea for a couple of reasons. First, the Ascension is such an important event in our Catholic Christian Faith, if we celebrate it on a weekday, I’m sorry to say, there probably would be far less people listening about this event’s importance. And second, the Ascension and Pentecost really do go hand-in-hand and celebrating them on consecutive Sundays, liturgically, helps tell the whole story in sequence.

So, most of you also probably know, scholars often call next Sunday, which is Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. And if that’s the birthday, I like to say, the labor pains start today with the Ascension of the Lord. Our first reading from Acts and our Gospel reading both describe Jesus’ Ascension. And even though Saint Luke wrote both, his description is more vivid in Acts. In fact, as a literary technique, Luke’s narration in Acts contains, what I call, the dumbest question in the whole Bible. We’re told Jesus’ Apostles had literally watched their physical Lord rise and disappear into the bottom of a cloud when suddenly two men dressed in white garments appear and ask; “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?” Now you gotta wonder, was Peter thinking, “Really, are you kidding me? Did you guys see what just happened? We just watched the bottom of the Jesus’ Birkenstocks disappear into that cloud.” Well, let’s not worry about this awkward question right away; let’s look for today’s real spiritual messages as we celebrate Jesus’ Ascension. Let’s find something we should take home today and possibly even meditate on for a while.

Acts of the Apostles is one of the few books in the Bible that reads almost like a real adventure story, which maybe makes it a little easier to identify with. It’s about our early Church after Jesus’ Ascension.

So, today we just heard the first eleven verses from Acts of the Apostles and the last eight verses from Luke’s Gospel. A new story begins with those labor pains I just mentioned to give birth to our new Church. Jesus Ascends into heaven and leaves an unlikely bunch in charge to spread the Good News. There is an important fact here you should never forget. These guys we hear about every Sunday like; Peter, Paul, James, John, Matthew, or Stephen are not people mentioned in other secular history books. They are not well known political, military, or religious leaders of their time. Nor, would it seem, are any of them wealthy. For the most part, they are just simple dirty knuckle working class folks who no one important even knew. Add to that, the man they’d followed was just brutally executed as a criminal in some backwater province of the Roman Empire. And now, their whole religious movement is going to start suffering centuries of murderous persecution, beginning with most of the Apostles becoming martyrs. Yet here we are, some 2000 years later and there are over 2 billion of us who call ourselves Christian. So, call it what you want Mr. non-believer, that is a miracle.

OK, so how do we people of faith explain the miracle? It started right in the second verse of Acts where Jesus gave “instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.” He also told them to stay in Jerusalem after his ascension until the Holy Spirit baptized them. Now, we’ll hear all about that baptism in the Holy Spirit next weekend so be sure to come back. Regardless, it is obvious the Holy Spirit played a major role in the growth and success of our Church after Jesus’ ascension. This journey of our new Church and her first disciples, under some pretty ugly circumstances, with the power, guidance, and protection of the Holy Spirit is what Acts of the Apostles is all about and that’s why it is such a great story to read.

By the way, Saint Luke’s technique of asking that dumb question when the answer was obvious, had a definite purpose. It really wasn’t a dumb question at all. It was a sarcastic poke in the eye. It was really a statement; “Apostles of Jesus, He has given you a mission to accomplish, so don’t just stand around staring at the sky wishing he were here to hold your hands. It’s time to get on with it. Now move out!”

Oh my, oh my, but Jesus wasn’t there. Their spiritual leader who had all the answers, was gone. Now again, as we sit here 2000 years later, we know the rest of the story. We know what happens on Pentecost but, at Jesus’ Ascension, the Apostles must have felt maybe – abandoned but certainly, scared. Hence, I used the metaphor of the labor pains started there and then. And here is what you should take home to meditate on. This sense of pain and spiritual loneliness is one we all feel at times, isn’t it? The Apostles must have initially felt Jesus had gone to heaven, somewhere out there with God, completely separated from them, now alone on earth. They were not alone however, and you know what else,,, neither are we ever alone. The historical human Jesus was gone but the Divine Jesus was still with them, just as he promised to be, and the confidence and courage would come when the Holy Spirit enflames their souls at Pentecost. Now for everyone here today, who is baptized, that same flame is burning in us also, we just must open our hearts and embrace it. Jesus’ disciples are about to bravely travel and spread the Good News throughout the known world. His ascension into heaven, to sit at the right hand of God as the eternal Divine Jesus ensured he could be with them forever, wherever they go, and strengthen them through the power of the Holy Spirit, no matter what the pain or circumstances. And with confidence, we can know the Divine Jesus Christ is with us today and forever. This is the powerful message of Jesus’ physically human ascension.

< Older Post

Newer Post >

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time August 30, 2026

By Teresa Stephens • September 2, 2026

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 30, 2026

12th Sunday in Ordinary time June 21, 2026

September 2, 2026

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time July 19, 2026

By Gail Johnson • September 2, 2026

Paul T. Keil, 18-19 July 2026 16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Season A Peace be with you and welcome to our celebration of the Mass for the 16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time. OK, some of you may remember I’ve said before, in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapters 5, 6, and 7 comprise the whole Sermon on the Mount, but did you know Chapter 13, where we are today, is often called the Sermon of the Parables. In this single chapter Matthew strings together seven separate parables from Jesus. Today we just heard numbers two, three, and four. Last weekend we heard the first one with the Parable of the Sower and what happens to the seeds scattered in different places. Next weekend you’ll hear the final three parables from Chapter 13 so, be sure to come back. So, what is Jesus saying in these readings. Last week we heard the parable about seeds as an allegory for Jesus’s words falling on a path and being eaten by birds, falling on rocky ground and withering with no roots, falling into thorns and being choked by life’s anxieties, and falling on fertile soil to bear fruit. Today we have Jesus giving us another parable about planting seeds and again, just like last week, Jesus’ disciples ask him to explain the parable. And since He stops to explain both parables about planting, he just might be trying to emphasize something important here for his disciples, and for us. One thing is clear in these parables however, God’s Kingdom will always coexist in this physical world with forces opposing it, like the wheat and the weeds growing together. Now many religious people struggle with this condition. Some see it as predestination. A weed in the wheat field or a seed in the rocks must represent people predestined to go to hell. That’s what it literally says, right? Still others ask in frustration; this is God we’re talking about, why does God’s Kingdom have to struggle with opposing forces at all? Why doesn’t God just get rid of the evil? Well, our old friend, St Thomas Aquinas wrote quite a bit about good and evil coexisting in our fallen world. He said sometimes the two are so tightly interwoven that you couldn’t have certain types of good without certain types of evil. For example, he said simply, “there would be no virtue of the martyr without the cruelty of the tyrant.” Friends, God delights in our freedom, our intelligence, and our cooperation when we freely make the decision to accept God’s love. Without free will we cannot choose to love. Jesus’ explanation of the wheat and weed parable certainly helps when he says; “The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels” and in the next verse he says; “The Son of Man will send his angels.” There is a very important take-away here every single Christian should remember. Eternal judgment belongs to God alone, not to anyone else – period. This is a consistent message Jesus gives us in all four Gospels but unfortunately, there are those who sometimes forget this simple divine fact about humanity’s relationship with the unlimited creator of the universe. We may perceive an individual as being bad or even intrinsically evil but judgment for their immortal souls belongs exclusively to God. I always like an old adage that goes like this, “if I ever get to heaven, I may be surprised by who I see there, and they may be even more surprised to see me.” I’ll admit, over the years for a long time, as I’ve meditated on this parable about weeds and wheat or last week’s parable about seeds, especially the ones falling into thorns choked by worldly anxiety, there was something always bothering me. You see, if we’re not careful both parables can make life, heaven, and hell sound kind of random or worse yet, they can make God’s love sound like it is exclusively reserved for preselected people. I know now however, there is nothing further from the truth. If you’ve lived life for a while and think back to times when you were say maybe,,, struggling in school, or first dating, or trying to make ends meet while raising a family, or competing for promotions at work, or trying to buy that first house, you realize there may have been times when your life wasn’t very spiritually fruitful. In fact, I now realize there were times in my own past when thoughts of God, salvation, or prayer were nowhere in my daily routine. I even wonder; was there a period in my life when I was one of those weeds or a seed in the thorns? Thankfully, with reflection on the whole of Scripture, guidance from the Church, and maybe some help from the Holy Spirit I realize now these parables are not “either / or” propositions. God doesn’t intentionally create some people as weeds and some people as wheat nor does God throw souls into the wind to randomly fall in the thorns, or on stony ground, or in fertile soil. If you’re not careful, you can come to those conclusions, however. You can read the Bible too narrowly and pick out verses here and there that help support your personal image of what you want God to be. Those tend to be the same people who like to do God’s judgment work for him. Here’s the thing; some of us here today may have actually spent some time as those ugly weeds but at some point, with God’s help, we decided to change and now we’re wheat growing in that good old fertile soil. My sisters and brothers, sin must never be viewed as a permanent state. Like we heard from the Book of Wisdom today, “you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.” This is the greatest gift of our Christian faith; God loves us all so much, even great sinners, God is always ready to forgive. So, here’s a challenge and homework for us all today. Most of us know people out there from all age groups, but especially some of our youth, who may be temporarily living life like the weeds in our parable today or maybe tangled in those thorns of life’s tribulations. First and foremost, we must be confident, sin is not a permanent state of life, second, we don’t judge, third, pray for them no matter how nasty they may seem. And finally, if we’re really, really brave, we offer them a hand to pull them up and out of the weeds, rocks, or thorns into God’s fertile soil.