FR. OLMAN’S HOMILY

May 4, 2008

ASCENSION OF THE LORD

Today’s feast is the Ascension of our Lord into heaven.  The Church celebrates this feast because it brings out an essential aspect of the Easter mystery:  that our risen Lord, in his glorified humanity, is present with his Father in heaven.  He continues to intercede on our behalf, and continues to pour out his spirit upon the Church so that his mission may be continued in our own day.

The story of the ascension forms the prologue to the book of Acts.  In the mind of Luke, the ascension is the climax of our Lord’s work on earth.  Luke makes it the hinge of his two books, it concludes his first book, the Gospel, and opens his second, Acts.  According to the book of Acts, The Ascension occurred 40 days after Jesus’ resurrection. In the Bible forty does not design a mathematical sum.  It is not to be taken literally.  The number 40 throughout the Bible does not refer to a specific numerical value.  We ourselves may say that something happened two or three years ago, by which we mean an indefinite time.  Forty in the bible is mouthing like that.  40 indicate a period of time in which God accomplishes his work.  There are sixteen references in the New Testament to forty days or forty years, and over seventy references in the Old Testament.  Two examples are the fasting of Jesus in the desert for forty days and the wandering of the Israelites in the desert for forty years. Our attention is now focused on the forty days after Ester, following which Jesus ascended into heaven. Forty in that instance, we must remember, has a meaning beyond a numerical figure.  It points to the final acts of Jesus in this earth.   The forty days symbolize a sacred time of preparation.

Luke’s interest lies in the presence of the risen Christ with his disciples before he entered a glory and a presence which hid him form their direct experience.  He will be with them in his Spirit, and will lead them from Jerusalem throughout Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth.  The disciples are adjusting themselves to the fact of the risen Christ, until the Spirit directs them to begin their mission.

Galilee is for Matthew the place of our Lord’s post-resurrection appearance.  The meeting of Lord and disciples is a solemn affair, arranged on a mountain, the eleven paying Jesus homage, Jesus approaching them a s a prince to his people.  The solemnity is enhanced by Jesus’ address to them.  Matthew has illustrated and highlighted the authority and power of Jesus right through his Gospel.  It was Jesus’ right to found the Kingdom and he did so by preparing these disciples to bring this Kingdom o all men, binding them together into a new people of God, consecrated by baptism and pledged to the Lord’s instructions on how to live.  They have witnessed the limitations of his power on earth, but now they have witnessed authority means he will be ever present in their mission and in everything they do for him. “Know that I am with you always, yes, to the end of time”.

The ascension marks the transition form Jesus’ ministry culminating in his death and resurrection to the ministry of the church that, Paul reminds us today, is his body.  The commission of Jesus expressed in Matthew continues to this day.,  many saints and contemporary members of the body of Christ experience moments or even lengthy periods of doubt.  Many of us worshiping here today are sometimes troubled by such experiences.  I assure you, it is normal. The disciples fell down to worship Jesus, demonstrating their faith; yet this is mingled with doubt, a common psychological experience.

Mother Teresa went to Calcutta, India, because she distinctly heard God calling her to serve amongst the poorest of the poor.  After heeding God’s call, she felt abandoned by God for the most of the rest of her life.  Her experience of desolation was revealed with the publication last summer of her journals and letters.  In 1959, she wrote “in my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not exists”.  Earlier, she had written to the Archbishop of Calcutta, “I find no words to express the depths of the darkness”.  A spiritual director helped her to conclude that these painful experiences could help her to identify not only with the abandonment that Jesus felt during his crucifixion, but also with the abandonment that the poor faced daily.  In this way, she hoped to enter the “dark holes” of the lives of those with whom she worked every day.

1-       Today, the Mass, which renews our life in Christ through baptism, is celebrated throughout the world, thanks to missionaries carrying out Jesus’ commission.  St Francis exhorts us to preach to gospel always, and when necessary, use words.

2-       The commission to teach is carried out in Christian education, theology, and other intellectual work.  These disciples depend on the Holy Spirit and must address the questions of the heart and of the mind.  Jesus is with us as we make decisions, study, pray and participate in the sacramental life of the church.

3-       In time of doubt, we might make our own they prayer of the desperate father in the Gospel “Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief”.