Homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension Sunday (Year C) June 1, 2025

The following transcript of the homily is in the original formatting that was used for the sake of live delivery with all cues, emphasis, and notes included.

Transcript:

“In a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him from their sight.” Words of our first reading from Acts of the Apostles.

In the Name of the Father + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The clouds came and covered the Son (S-O-N), and just like that the Apostles were in the dark.

But if we are honest, the apostles had already been in the dark in one crucial way leading into the scene of our first reading from the book of Acts.

And the darkness that they possessed was evident in the very question they asked Jesus right before He ascended into heaven.

They asked Him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Now, coming from the common understanding of the Messianic prophecies at that time, this was a decent question.

Maybe even a fair one to ask Jesus right then and there.

This was after seeing this Guy, Jesus, take the most brutal punishment the Roman oppressors of Israel could dish out to the point of death.

And He would not just rise from the dead to possess the same body,

But somehow he would have an even more powerful body than before.

So the apostles probably thought surely NOW is the time.

NOW He is going to finally overthrow Israel’s enemies for good and reestablish the earthly kingdom the glories of which have not been seen since the time of David.

Keep in mind, this new and improved Jesus of Nazareth, has been hanging around making appearances to all sorts of people for 40 days straight.
So they knew SOMETHING was about to happen – it HAD to happen at this point.

Jesus even told them, ” Hey, you might wanna stay in Jerusalem for what I got coming next.”

But though they had been basking in glow of the original Easter Light of the resurrected Christ for 40 days, their minds were still dim.

Their expectations for the immediate establishment of an earthly, political messianic kingdom only proved one thing:

The Apostles were still in the dark about the true nature of Jesus’s mission.
[PAUSE]

I see that sometimes WE are not too different from the apostles here.

We too – have been basking in the Easter Light for 40 days.

We too – have long been seeing the Risen Lord ever since He stepped back on the scene after stepping out of the tomb.

We too – are gathered now at the very moment when the Risen Lord becomes an Ascended Lord.

And so we look up, and we peer up, then we squint our eyes as the clouds start to blend away the white of His garments, and our hearts may be crying out:

“Not now Jesus! Don’t leave yet, Lord!”

Again, I said sometimes we are not too different from the apostles because,

We too can feel like we are still in the dark even after the Easter Light has come.

There have been 40 days of celebrating Light while the light of our souls might have been flickering dim.
Because regardless of what the liturgical calendar may say the struggles we all have might still be here.

There are struggles that go on outside these walls:

Maybe some of you are beginning or in the middle of careers but the better paying jobs are still hard to come by.

Maybe some of you are straining to keep money in the house

– But bills are looking more like the ones they pass in Congress,

– Eggs and orange juice are still costing more like caviar and champagne than part of a balanced breakfast.

– And you are starting to worry about how retirement is going to pan out.

There are also those who are new to Nashville and are still trying to make it a home

But maybe some of you still feel isolated and alone away from the place you knew,

Maybe you are starving for meaningful connections with people

And then you come here to find peace and relief, but there are struggles that go on within these walls too:

Maybe Lent did not go so well and as a result the Easter season has not been as inspiring as we hoped it would be – and the result as been spiritual dryness.

Maybe some of you have young children and really want to still get something out of Mass,

– But it’s hard when you have to take turns in and out of the cry room all 40 days of Lent and 40 days of Easter with 10 more days to go and nothing has changed.

Maybe some of you have been fighting the same sins and addictions in and out of the confessional.

The struggles we bear inside and outside these walls can no doubt make for struggles in within the walls of the soul in the spiritual life.

But whatever it has been – God knows our tired and troubled minds and hearts.

And He also knows that through these days of Easter Light our little ember has been flickering because of this trial – And dim because of that tribulation.

We are trying our best to take in all the Easter light we can but we have been struggling in the dark.

Thus, there is room for us in the apostles’ question, but then it takes on different forms:

“Lord, are you at this time going to restore:
– Peace to my life?
– Relief to my soul?
– Hope to my spirit?
– Faith to my heart?”
– Vision to my eyes so that I can see what You are doing in my life?”

These are the cries of God’s people Israel that WE send up today.

At first we might still feel low because we are going through the valley.

Though we might feel down in the lower regions of the soul,

Do we not have a God who has “descended into the lower regions of the earth?” 

Do we not have a Lord who has taken “prisoners captive” into freedom?

Do we not have a Christ who has been lifted up to the heights?

Let me answer that for you: We do!

Say it again? We do!

One more time? We do!

And so it is the ascending Jesus that comforts and prepares His apostles and promises them the Holy Spirit

And this Holy Spirit will bestow upon them the definitive Light they need concerning Jesus’s mission for them.

Jesus gave His apostles comfort through the great “promise of the Father” before He ascended.

In fact, He had to ascend in order for them to receive the final consolation that was this great promise.

Jesus prepared His apostles for this promise through His ascension,

For Jesus accomplished what St. Paul proclaims in Scripture.

– Jesus had to ascend and be seated at the Father’s “right hand in the heavens” in order for His apostles to receive the grace that fills all things in the Church and makes things happen.

This was the grace of the Ascension, which prepares the way for the Holy Spirit to come.

And this was the grace given to the apostles which would make them the Lord’s “witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This was the grace given to the apostles that made them prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in the work of ministry.

And Jesus makes THIS GRACE of His ascension felt in our lives and promises us the light of the Holy Spirit.

I said earlier that some of us might have been in the valley of the lower regions of our earthen souls.

So allow Christ to DESCEND to meet you there and then ASCEND with you to take you to where He is – seated at the Father’s right hand “in the heavens” – which spiritually for us still earth is being in the state of grace.

For the Ascended Lord shall ascend with you and give you strength both in your work and in your search for work in the dignity of employment.

The Ascended Lord shall ascend with families to lift up your eyes to Him as sons and daughters in family of the Father who are worth more than any bill or grocery bag, and He shall provide for you.

The Ascended Lord shall ascend with you and your children from the pew to the cry room and back again.

The Ascended Lord shall ascend with you to a spiritual home in His heart before this tabernacle and He will ascend with you even higher to the closeness of the Father’s embrace – you shall not left alone in social isolation or to fend for yourself in spiritual desolation.

And by the power of the Holy Spirit to come after the Ascension we shall still become what Jesus’s disciples later became:

– apostles and prophets in the world,

– evangelists and pastors in our homes,

– and teachers and followers in the Body of Christ.

And we shall “go to all the nations, beginning from [Nashville]” to preach “repentance, for the forgiveness of sins,” in His name.

And so I proclaim for you, “men [and women] of [St. Edwards]” that 40 days ago Fr. Andrew baptized with Easter water,

But “in a few days you will be BAPTIZED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT.”

But for now – prepare your eyes to look up, not in a few days but in a few moments.

Because then you shall see the Lord Jesus ascending from the altar,

Above a cloud of prayers from the thuribles of human hearts, Clothed in the white garment of the Eucharistic Host.

In the Name of the Father + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Given at St. Edward Catholic Church in Nashville, TN.