May 29, 2022 (The Ascension of the Lord)

“Why Are You Looking Up?”

by Fr. Dominic DeLay, O.P.

[This is the text composed by the homilist prior to delivering the homily.]

Have you felt lost, directionless, even abandoned, recently? Perhaps you even find yourself grieving. Those graduating soon might feel some of these things, hopefully mixed with joy and hope. By the end of today’s passage from the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles surely feel sad and lost.

The risen Jesus has gathered them, and they must eagerly wonder if he has an exciting announcement. What great thing does he plan to do next? The mathematically inclined among them might even have counted that the risen Jesus has been with them for a propitious forty days. Surely something momentous is going to happen. They can’t wait, and they ask altogether, as if they’ve plotted and rehearsed, “Are you now going to restore the kingdom of Israel?”

Instead, he disappointingly, frustratingly, tells them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority.” In other words, they’re operating on a need to know basis. He mysteriously tells them to wait for the promise of the Father, when they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. After that, he says, they will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.

Now they must have even more questions: Promise? Baptism with the Holy Spirit? The ends of the earth? But before they can get a word out, Jesus makes what somebody told me the other day is an Irish exit: He leaves the party without saying goodbye. “He was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.” It’s an exit that feels final. It must feel like he’s died all over again. Only this time, they may wonder if they’re allowed to grieve. After all, he hasn’t died again. Has he? What just happened? Why has he abandoned them?

Here we are, forty days into the season of Easter joy, celebrating Jesus’ resurrection, yet we may find ourselves wondering where this Jesus is in the midst of so much death, grief, fear, and helplessness: a million Americans dead from Covid, not to mention all the others in the world, war in Ukraine and around the globe, ten mass shootings a week in our country this year. Where is Jesus when we need him?

We’re celebrating the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ climate change encyclical. Can we make real and sufficient progress with climate change? Jesus went up in a cloud – he must have some control over climate. Where is he when we need him? What do we do?

What do the apostles do? They just stand there, looking up into the sky. What else is there to do? But two men dressed in white are suddenly standing with them, asking, “why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” Okay, so he’s going to return. But when? Tomorrow? In a year? In 1,000 years? Should they be making plans without him, or should they wait?

Traditionally, this week before Pentecost is a time of waiting. In fact, it’s sometimes called the Church’s first novena, nine days of intense prayer. Nine because Ascension is traditionally celebrated on the Thursday nine days before Pentecost Sunday. But most dioceses in the United States now celebrate Ascension on the Sunday before Pentecost. It seems we American Catholics don’t like to party. We’re so busy working that we don’t take the day off for weekday holy days of obligation. We don’t like to wait either, so now the waiting period is conveniently shortened. During this week of working yet waiting, students will especially be working hard as they prepare for finals and final deadlines, at least when they’re not waiting and worrying. Will the Spirit come in time for finals? Or better yet, will Jesus come before finals, ending finals forever with the end of time?

Of course, the Spirit has already come to us. We wait for next Sunday’s celebration of the Spirit that is already working within us, praying for a renewal of the Spirit within the Church and each of us, or, more to the point, for a renewal of our acceptance of the Spirit and its guidance and power. We can wonder where Jesus is during times of worry, fear, and grief, but we are reminded by today’s feast that Jesus and his Spirit are already and always present and at work within us. We have already been clothed with the promise of the Father, baptized in the Spirit. Even as we grieve or feel lost, we have the power to look forward in hope.

This synodal church of ours has us not looking up to heaven or to the pope or the bishop or Fr. Xavier or our small group leader, wondering when they’re going to take action and solve things or give us our marching orders, but rather looking across the way at them and at each other, waiting together, praying together, envisioning and walking and working together. In fact, just as Jesus mysteriously asked the apostles to wait for the promise of the Father, I can tell you now that next Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, we’ll hear the announcement of the next phase of our community synod, when we’ll all be called to action. Let’s pray together this week that we’re ready to respond to the call.

Speaking of calls to action, in just over a week, in a novena of days, Californians and others have their primary election. You thought midterm season was long – our country’s primary season has already begun and continues for months. How are we Catholics fulfilling the duty and celebrating the privilege of citizenship? Voting is one very important way for us to heal our planet – or, rather, God’s earth. Civic engagement is a significant way for us to end violence, here and to the ends of the earth. While none of us has reason not to act, I hope our graduates will feel especially empowered to take action in our Church and the world at large.

Today’s end of the Gospel According to Luke, the same author who wrote the Acts of the Apostles, has another version of Jesus’ ascension, with a different reaction from his friends and followers. He blessed them before being taken up to heaven. “They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.” Even in the midst of grief and confusion, may we wait in joy. Today’s passage to the Ephesians starts our novena with St. Paul’s blessing over us:

“Brothers and sisters: May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him. May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe.”