Homily for Ascension Sunday by Msgr. Jameson

"The readings for this wonderful feast challenge us to do some serious spiritual acrobatics.  They want us to look in three directions at once: upwards, inwards, and outwards.  A balancing act for sure!  But our life of faith is like that, isn’t it?  It’s seldom, if ever, just one thing at a time.

The 'looking up' part is clear enough.  With the disciples of Jesus on the top of the Mount of Olives, our eyes today are firmly fixed on the heavens where Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father.  His ascension gives the finishing touch to his resurrection.  It is ‘mission accomplished’ for Jesus.

The mission had begun when he embraced our human condition by becoming one of us, walking in our footsteps, traveling our roads, experiencing our pains, feeling our fears, taking on our weaknesses, embracing our limitations even to the point of coming face-to-face with death itself.  And just when death had seemed to get the last word, his Father had spoken an even more powerful  word.  And when he did, death gave up its grip on the lifeless body of Jesus, and he burst forth from the tomb radiant with new life.  Forty days later, he returned to his Father where he intercedes for all of us.  Ascension is about looking up, then: looking up to heaven where Christ is gloriously triumphant, our hope and our joy.

But looking up to heaven is not enough.  There is work to be done right here.  As I once heard it put, we can’t afford to be so heavenly minded as to be no earthly good!  And that’s where looking inward and looking outward come in.

First, looking inward.  St. Augustine, in a homily for this feast, had this lovely way of putting it:  'Christ ascended before the apostles’ eyes, and they turned back grieving, only to find him in their hearts.'  St. Paul, in today’s reading from Ephesians, speaks of looking with 'the eyes of our hearts' – coming to see the Christ who dwells within us by faith, awakening to the ways God’s grace is working within us right now, coming to know the hope that is ours, the 'surpassing greatness of God’s power for us who believe,'  (St. Paul’s words again).  The eyes of the heart are able, in times of pain and darkness and grief, to see, however dimly, the hand of a mysterious but loving God at work.  Only the eyes of the heart can make sense out of life’s most perplexing mysteries.  That’s why we look inward.

Lastly, the Ascension gets us to look outward.  The Ascension is not only about meeting the Christ who dwells within, it is also about taking that same Christ out into the world where we live.  'Go, make disciples of all nations,' Jesus told his disciples.  He says the same to us.  We don’t get the luxury of standing still gazing at the heavens anymore than the disciples on top of the Mount of Olives did.  There is work to be done, a world to be transformed, a gospel to be preached, and we are the preachers. 

The Ascension reminds us that we who follow Christ are called to look outwards and to go outwards, to leave our comfort zone and plant the seeds of the Gospel in the very dirty soil of this world:  soil that is often hostile to the Gospel, or at least painfully indifferent to it.  We are called as Church to go places where we are not very welcome, to proclaim good news that doesn’t always sound very good – certainly not to a culture that has eyes only for the here and now, that often confuses freedom with license, views suffering as meaningless, and values life only when it brings pleasure.

My friends, make no mistake:  the Ascension is about directions.  Inward directions and outward directions.  It is about internalizing the gospel to the point that it takes root in us and totally transforms us.  And it is also about taking that gospel to the streets: preaching it by the love we give, the stands we take, the poor we serve, the justice we promote.  Some words of St. Francis of Assisi come to mind: 'Preach the gospel at all times,' he said, 'using words only if necessary.'

Dear friends, this Feast of the Ascension does involve us in a balancing act --- some serious acrobatics, if you will.  We are at the same time to live on a heavenly plane and to slug it out on an earthly plane.  That’s the life of a follower of Christ, a life that’s not easy and never dull.  But if we take it seriously, we’ll make our mark.  And like those gravity defying performers in a circus, people will sit up and take notice!"