Deacon Mike's homily for the Ascension

Ascension Sunday – May 16, 2021 Cycle B

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:17-23; Mark 16:15-20

Good morning …

            Today we celebrate the feast of Ascension, formally Ascension Thursday – once a holy day of obligation, but today most dioceses have transferred the celebration of the Ascension from last Thursday to today. In those dioceses the Ascension was celebrated on Thursday, today’s readings would be the Seventh Sunday after Easter. And in the traditional Latin Mass, this is the Sunday after the Ascension. So depending on where you attend Mass this weekend, the reading could differ.

            But no matter what readings you hear, the theme all centers around the message Jesus left for his followers.

            Even without the readings I think we all know what the Ascension was, I know I was taught about it by the good nuns at St. Theresia’s just a few short years ago. I know I miss those old nuns – we never quite appreciated them at the time – BVMs, remember: Black Veiled Monsters. They always came armed, with a yardstick or something to intimidate us with, but oh how they are missed today. They made sure you learned that old Baltimore Catechism and I don’t really remember them using those yardsticks, apparently their only use was to send a message.

            Anyway, the story is simple: Jesus goes to the mountain with his disciples where he gives them a final blessing and a final charge: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to the whole of creation.” He also makes them a final promise: He will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to accompany them, to give them the “spirit of truth” to testify for him.

            But he also has a final warning for them. A warning he’s been repeating for some time: You don’t belong to this world. If you did the world would love you, but because you don’t it will hate you, as it hated me first.

            Then he goes off to the Father and while the disciples are still looking up two angles appear asking, “Why are you just looking at the sky?” In other words, Get off your duff and get ready for the Advocate to prepare you and go to work.

            Now that’s pretty simple. In fact, it’s a very nice story. But it comes to us with some baggage, some things that should concern us. While we know the end of the story – God will prevail – we find ourselves at this point in history confused as to what point in the story we are reaching.

            I don’t know if you know it, but I’ve written two murder mysteries. In the first on I killed a nun, I think something in my childhood might have suggested that to me … but I digress. The point is, I know how stories are told, the protagonist always faces ups and downs, expected but often unexpected challenges which threaten his goals.

            Now we all know in a murder mystery the killer will always be uncovered, we just don’t know how or when. The same occurs in real life, and it should not be any surprise that it occurs in our spiritual lives as well. We know the end, but where are we in the story?

            It seems that we just might be in the part where the world really does hate us and where good men, for whatever reason, do not know Jesus, do not know or understand his teaching.

            There was a time, not too long ago, when Catholics were unique among Christians. Oh we had funny rituals, we didn’t eat meat on Friday and, for many, we were gently forced-fed our religion. It may have seemed quaint or funny, but it was respected. And our brothers and sisters in faith knew and practiced it. Mass attendance in as short time ago as the 1950s hovered around 70 percent. Now we’re lucky if we reach 30 percent – in fact some surveys indicate we’re losing a percent a year, and that is considered a conservative estimate.

            Our people, our brothers and sisters in Jesus, have all too often found themselves unsure of what this thing we call Catholicism is. Too often people would introduce themselves as having grown-up Catholic but for some reason have fallen away from the faith. Many still have family members who are devout but they themselves have lost their connection with the Church. 

            When we visit they will often ask questions. I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked a question about our beliefs and traditions that the Catholic person asking me should already know.

            It kind of reminds me of the old story about the young priest who was sent by his bishop into a village that had never had a priest. To get a feel of the community, the young priest asked people what they thought was the greatest Catholic feast. He got several answers that made no sense until he found an old man sitting alone in a park. He asked him the same question.

            “Easter,” the man replied.

            “And why Easter?” the priest asked.

            “Because, that is when the stone was rolled back and Jesus stepped out of the tomb … and if he sees his shadow …”

            Well, that’s kind of what we see. People, Catholics, who should know better are confusing the story of our salvation with stories that have no relevance to our faith. Too many are accepting the world in all its decadent glory.  

            Now, of course, there is a reason for this. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what it is. There are many suggestions about what went so wrong that we lost so many of our brothers and sisters to a theological ambivalence. Some say Vatican II is to blame, others say it was the loss of so many of those beautiful black veiled sisters who had dedicated their lives to teaching the faith. Liberal catechesis and the rejection of Paul VI’s encyclical on birth control, Humanae Vitae, and if you look long enough you’ll find dozens of other theories that the wags on Facebook promote. 

            But I don’t know what it is, I have some theories, but nothing you could bet the farm on. What I do know is that something has happened in the last 50 years that has loosened the glue that had attached many to the faith we love. And I do know that we must, if we wish to follow Christ’s final charge, do something about it.     

            We hear a lot about evangelizing the world. I think perhaps we should also take another look – a look inside – and see how many of our brothers and sisters in Christ need to be re-evangelized. How many need what some might call fraternal correction – gentle, not harsh.

            That is our mission. That is what we are required to do. Those were the last words of Christ to his disciples – to us, we are, after all, nothing, if we are not his disciples.

            And he’s sending the Spirit to aid us, to envelop us, to give us the courage and strength to do so.

            Next week we celebrate his coming at Pentecost. When the Holy Spirit came at the first Pentecost, the hearts and souls of the original apostles were engulfed in his love and enflamed to carry out Christ’s great command: to go and to baptize all nations.

            We celebrate that great event next Sunday, when he came to the apostles. He also came to us in our own baptism. So let us take a little time to prepare ourselves to meet him again as we look forward to next Sunday. Let us renew that flame whose light might have dimmed a bit. Let us take some time this week before the Blessed Sacrament to welcome him back into our hearts so that we can become the new building blocks for the Church.

            We have 24 hour adoration in our chapel. So let’s take the time this week to welcome him back, to prepare ourselves to accept Christ’s great command: to evangelize the world, starting with our own friends and families.

-- Deacon Mike Manno St. Augustin Parish Des Moines, Iowa