Ascension Thursday May 29th/Sunday May 31st 2014

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of the Risen Lord Jesus, to the right hand of His Father in Glory. Yet, if you think about it, this seems to be a contradiction. After all, Jesus said in the Gospel we just read, “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” So, if Jesus ascends into heaven, how can he be with us until the end of time? If Jesus wanted to be with us until the end of the world, how come he didn’t just stay in Jerusalem and be available to everyone there? If he truly loved us, wouldn’t he have stayed so that we could encounter him, personally, just like his disciples, so that we too could see him, touch him--hear him? These are good questions. How can we answer them?

In our own lives, we can certainly feel as if Jesus has left us alone, especially when we experience bad things, like the death of a loved one, a personal tragedy; but also we can seem abandoned by Jesus our God even in just the everyday struggles of life. In ordinary life we can often experience sadness or loneliness, or sometimes even incredible anguish. I believe the apostles and disciples of Jesus felt many of these things, especially after Jesus was cruelly crucified—he left them alone through the stark reality of his death and then later apparently, through his ascension into heaven. How did they overcome their anguish and how do we overcome our own? Where lies our hope in this life?..... Well, the answer is simple, yet hard; but the ascension gives us the answer. The ascension points to our hope.

At the Ascension the Disciples believed in Jesus’ promise. So we, like them, also must believe in His promise. They believed in faith that even though Jesus was with the Father in heaven, and at the same time He was with them; and not just in their memory or in their heart. They believed that Jesus was still on earth physically with them, in His resurrected and now glorified body. This brings up one of the mistakes that many can make in their understanding about Christ’s ascension into heaven. The mistake is to think that Jesus is no longer with us here on earth.

When we think of the ascension, we can wrongly picture Jesus standing before the apostles and then floating up into the clouds disappearing from their sight. This is not what the language of the Gospel means. We have to understand the words of today's Gospel mystically; because they are speaking of great mysteries.

Mystically speaking what does it mean, as we are told in today's Gospel, "and he was taken up into heaven."? Well first of all Heaven is not a place up in the sky somewhere beyond the clouds or beyond the stars at the edge of the universe; nor is heaven some type of other dimension or parallel universe, talk of which is so in vogue now a days; heaven is not the stuff of science fiction.

Heaven is all around us because God is all around us. There is however, a veil that separates heaven from us. Heaven goes beyond our senses; even though it is all around, it transcends our ability to see it, touch it, taste it, hear it or smell it. Yet is more a reality around us than that which we can sense….we believe in what is invisible…

To be taken up into heaven means then to enter through that veil that separates heaven and earth; it is to go beyond our sense perception and behold that which we can only see now through the eyes of faith. To be taken up into heaven is to behold that reality above all other realities which no eye as seen, no ear has heard nor has never even entered into the mind of man. It is to behold that God who is all around as He truly is, to behold Him face to face, which means to become One with Him in an eternal union of unending Love. Heaven is the ultimate reality all around us, more real than what we can experience with our senses.

At His ascension then, Jesus in His human body enters through that veil and becomes the way, in fact the only way for us to enter through as well. And so Jesus' humanity has become a type of doorway, if you will, from earth to heaven. And so where He has gone in His human nature we can also now go with Him, in Him and through Him-He is the Way. By the way, we can enter into heaven with Him, in Him and through Him not only at our death but beginning already here on earth; this is our hope.

Hang with me here... Because of the ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost to the Apostles, who were the first priests (which we will celebrated liturgically next week), Jesus' Human body can now be present both on earth and in heaven at the very same time. And so, in His Human nature, in His human body, blood, and soul--heaven and earth become one. In Jesus, heaven and earth unite.

The fact of the matter is, and this is very, very important to understand....the fact of the matter is, Jesus is also still on earth as He is in heaven. Not just spiritually, not just in the minds and hearts of the faithful, not just mystically in His Body the Church. Jesus is still present on earth in his human, corporal, physical and resurrected body. His human body, with all that makes up a human body: His hands and feet, His bones and blood and yes, His Human Heart alive and beating and His eyes looking lovingly at us, and ears with which to hear us, our pleading and our words of love.

The ascension was merely the end of His visible presence on earth, not the end of His physical presence on earth. Don't ever say, "when Jesus was on earth; and if you hear someone else say that correct them immediately. To say when Jesus was on earth is heresy. Jesus is still on earth, He is still on earth; He is still on earth.

But where, where is Jesus on earth as He is in heaven? At the Holy Mass, and only at the Holy Mass. It is at the Holy Mass that heaven and earth unite. At Holy Mass the veil is lifted and we entered into eternity and experience the resurrected and ascended Jesus sitting at His Throne at the Right Hand of the Father. The Heavenly Liturgy and the Earthly Liturgy literally become one; we worship and adore our God with all the angels and saints.

When we are in the presence of the Holy Eucharist we are at the same time both on earth and in heaven; in fact more in heaven than we are on earth. Where Jesus is there is heaven. Whether we encounter the Holy Eucharist, which is Jesus in His resurrected and ascended body, at Mass or outside of Mass in the tabernacle or at hours of adoration through Jesus in the Holy Eucharist we enter already through that veil that separates heaven and earth; we begin to process already that which we hope in; being embrace in the love of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Yes we can't see with our human eyes the body of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist because we can't see Heaven. Yet, through faith we can know with certainty that He is really there and we can touch Him. "In faith God present in the Holy Eucharist can come to us, and show himself to the eyes of our heart." How we must present our self, before the throne of God at Holy Mass. Exteriorly, how we must act, how we must dress, even during the summer months, always wearing our Sunday best; dressed for the wedding feast of the Lamb not for a day at the park or the beach. Interiorly how we must present ourselves, how souls cleansed and made pure by confession,

Because Jesus is still on earth in the Holy Eucharist we discover that this, "The Mystery of Our Faith," is our hope in the present life of struggle and fear. But we must believe with our whole hearts and minds that He is really there in the tabernacle and on our altars after the words of consecration are spoken; and we must, we must, if we are to possess hope, live out that belief by adoring Him in the Holy Eucharist, falling on our knees and crying out in love, "Oh my God I believe, please help my unbelief. We must allow our encounter with the Eucharist, Jesus, to transform us. We must give our hearts to Jesus who gives His heart to us in the Holy Eucharist.

The Eucharist is our resurrected and ascended Lord. The Eucharist is Jesus and where Jesus is there is our hope, there is Heaven on earth. …we go to heaven to the extent we go to Jesus Christ and enter into him… (Pope Benedict)

Let us turn to Our Lady for help…Holy Mary, Mother of our hope, Queen of Peace, pray for us. Come Holy Spirit, Come by means of the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Your well-beloved spouse. Amen.