From the Heart of the Shepherd

From the bulletin for The Ascension of the Lord (2026 May 17)

May 17 - Ascension/First Communion

This year’s Bible Study has provided the occasion to “resurrect” our parish’s YouTube channel, which was much more active during COVID, when we livestreamed daily Mass, stations of the Cross, etc. Last week, shortly after our new deacon’s first homilies, I was scrolling through old videos on our channel and happened across the livestream for Ascension Sunday 2020… at which your pastor preached his first homily!

I couldn’t resist passing the link on to Kevin for dissemination, if only to make us all more grateful that we are not in 2020 anymore. But ever since “ascending” to the lectern in that all-but-empty church six years ago to try to expound on the mystery we celebrate today, I feel a special connection with Our Lord’s Ascension. 

I am struck by Luke's very short telling of the event. “While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy” (Lk 24:51-52). 

Jesus leaves… but they still can worship Him. He has departed… but they are filled with great joy. The paradox is even more apparent in the Mass this year. Matthew’s Gospel ends with Jesus saying, “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” and yet we hear those words in the context of the Mass in which we remember His leaving earth to take His seat at the right hand of the Father in Heaven!

A classic Catholic both/and: Jesus has both ascended into Heaven and remained with us; He is still here, but we also await His return. Hebrews 6 gives a striking image of this dynamic: like a high priest who has entered into the Holy of Holies with a rope tied about his waist, held by those who remain outside in case he faints while in there and they need to pull him out (since no one else but him can enter), so Jesus has entered into the true sanctuary of Heaven, yet has left us a “rope” by which we still cling to Him–our faith–in virtue of which Jesus has become the anchor of our soul. This high priest will not faint, but if we do, He shall keep us from drifting away!

In 2026, this mystery speaks of hope and joy amid sorrow. We are all navigating our own mortality in one way or another. Many within our parish community are confronting it directly through the death or illness of themselves or a loved one. The Ascension reminds us, however, that to follow Christ it is “good for us to go” as well, so long as we are going to the Father (cf. Jn 16:7). Good Friday was only half the story; in Christ out death has become a path to exultation. “God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy!” (Ps 47:6). True, it is rare that anyone goes joyfully to their end (though the martyrs often have!). But in the measure the Faith sinks into our bones, death loses its power to make us sad. Granted, before entering heavenly glory, we mortals must first appear before the judgement seat of God, in whose eyes not even the angels are wholly pure (Job 15:15). But if Christ stands before the Father now pleading for us, how can we who long to see Him fear to stand before His face? 

As with Christ, so with those who die in Christ: they have left us, but they remain with us. Their bodies lie in the earth. But in the Communion of Saints, their souls are closer to us than ever, provided they rest in God. This of course does not completely or even halfway alleviate the pain separation. But it does provide us an invincible reason for hope. And so, as we delight in mother nature’s annual resurrection from the dead this springtime, and with the apostles stare a bit into the Heaven into which Our Lord has disappeared for a time, may the mystery and certainty of the Ascended Christ be for us an anchor for the soul while the waves of life wash over us.

From the Heart of the Shepherd: The Sixth Sunday of Easter