THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD (2025)
Readings:
Acts 1:1-11
Psalms 47:2-3, 6-9
Ephesians 1:17-23
Luke 24:46-53
Given all the problems (errant, self-centered bishops, bishop’s retirement stipends said to be $6,000 a month, world peace) I would like to suggest something the Conference of Catholic Bishops could solve with a minimum amount of collegiality – the confusion created by the Conference’s decision to have different parts of the country celebrate the Ascension at different times. I am not privy to the discussions in the 1990’s during the pontificate of St. John Paul II, but I would like to have hoped that the wide-ranging possible confusion of the Church was discussed. But for two people, Bishop Daniel Sheehan, representing the ecclesiastical province of Omaha, Nebraska, and Cardinal John O’Hara, representing the ecclesiastical provinces of Philadelphia, Boston, Hartford, New York, and at that time New Jersey (virtually the entire northeast, with the exception of New Jersey, which saw the light in 2022 and transferred the feast to Sunday), these bishops stubbornly got their way, and continue getting their way, in spite of the confusion their lack of action caused. While the bishops’ conference cannot change the world, they could pretend a united front and have the United States all celebrating the important Feast of the Ascension at the same time! Given the importance of the celebration, and given the statistics on how many people got to church on ‘holy days,’ you would think this would be a ‘no brainer.’ Luckily we live in the enlightened state of Florida, famous for its oranges, beaches, and old people, where the Ascension is celebrated on the weekend of what would have been the Seventh Sunday of Easter. The Conference of Catholic Bishops could wait for a Pope to unilaterally decide that the move of Ascension to Sunday is the best thing for the Church, or it could actually propose the move as something that would be a great benefit to their people. It’s unlikely they are considering doing something like that.
As has been the case throughout this Easter season, our liturgy begins with a reading from the Acts of the Apostles, in fact, the very opening lines of Acts. The apostles are still a little confused about what Jesus has done for them, for they ask Him: “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?” One would think they would have dropped by now a political understanding of Messiahship, but ingrained ideas die a slow death, even when the Lord teaches them several times that that is not the kind of Messiah He is. Jesus virtually changes the subject, telling them “it’s not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has established by His own authority,” leaving them with hope that what they wish for may some day happen. More importantly Jesus tells His apostles that “they will receive (rightful) power when the Holy Spirit comes upon [them].” When Jesus tells them that they “will be [His] witnesses in Jerusalem… and to the ends of the earth,” Jesus “is lifted up, and a cloud took Him from their sight.” It is then that all of the apostles in their best voices begin to sing the 1963 Peggy March song “I Will Follow Him.”
No, no, no; that last part really did not happen. But had the apostles been just a little more prescient, it could have! The song from my early youth seems to say it all: “I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go. There isn’t an ocean too deep, a mountain so high it can keep me away. I love him, I love him, I love (like the three times Peter says these words), and where he goes I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow.” The song from my youth expresses well the meaning of today’s glorious feast. Jesus’ Ascension was not so much meant to inspire awe as it was devotion. Jesus has left this world ahead of the apostles and us so that He can prepare a place for us – where He goes, we will follow. Preparing a place in heaven for us is what Jesus promised during His brief earthly ministry. There is nothing, “no mountain or sea” that should keep us from following in His footsteps, and the more we “follow Him,” the more we will “love Him, love Him, love Him.”
It is fitting that we have the opening lines of the Acts of the Apostles as our first reading, and it is just as fitting that our Easter custom (of reading from John’s gospel) is broken and we have the very last verses of Luke’s gospel. Remember, Luke is given credit for writing a gospel and the Acts. The gospel presents a briefer tradition in which Jesus blesses the apostles, and “as He blessed them He parted from them and was taken up to heaven.” Then in their best voices they sing – no, they don’t sing, but they could have were they so inclined, for they did come to love the Lord with their whole being, and assisted by the Holy Spirit they became His witnesses.
The two men dressed in white garments (angels) are like the voice from heaven at the Transfiguration: “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus has been taken up into heaven.” It was time to get off the mountain, it was time to distance themselves from the miraculous and get to the hard work of being Jesus’ “witnesses.” They had followed Him faithfully for three years, and they would follow Him for the rest of their lives. With the Spirit’s help the disciples would continue to follow the same Lord who privileged them with a call, even though bodily He was taken from their presence. Jesus had touched their hearts and “near Him [they] always must be,” for “He is their destiny.” They truly “love Him, love Him, love Him, and where He goes they will follow, follow, follow. He’ll always be their true love, their true love, their true love, from now until forever, forever, forever.” When it comes to Jesus, may Peggy March’s song be on our lips, until we enjoy the fullness of His presence in the heaven He has prepared for us.
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