In lieu of a Q&A this week, here in NJ, the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord is still a Holy Day of Obligation, so here is my homily for today’s feast – God Bless!
Our lives are full of “transitions.” We are always moving from one relatively comfortable place to a new and unfamiliar place. Graduating, getting married, having a baby, starting a new job, facing new responsibilities, moving into a new home, facing the death of a loved one, recovering from the breakup of a relationship, recovering from a heart attack,- all of these, and many more personal examples we know in our experience, are transitions. They take us from what we know, into the unknown. They present us with a new mission, a new orientation, a new challenge, a new moment in our vocation, a new part of living our baptism into Jesus.
Today we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord into Heaven. It is the feast of transition. In Luke’s account, in the Acts of the Apostles, the very last words of Jesus to us are “you will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.” Like the first disciples who heard those words, our transitional growth is from being tentative, afraid, anxious followers to being those who have received “power” when the Holy Spirit “comes upon” us. Our mission is to bring Jesus to this world. The power of his Holy Spirit remains with us, but we are his “witnesses” in this world.
But times of transition are difficult. We often cling to what we know, and are afraid of what we don’t know. It’s called a time of “transition” because we are “in between.” We are usually still longing for something that we must leave behind, some distinct loss. What is before us offers new challenges we haven’t gotten good at yet.
On this day of the Ascension of our Lord, which introduces this time of transition to our life in the Spirit, our life of mission, let us express our desire for a renewal of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let us imagine the healing presence of the Spirit in each of our relationships. This is where we will begin to witness to Jesus. Let us imagine how we can die to ourselves in our key relationships. From there, our witnessing can begin to go out “to the ends of the earth.”
