The Ascension of the Lord
Sunday, May 17, 2026
St. James Cathedral
I
can never celebrate this feast of the Ascension of the Lord without
remembering my first pilgrimage to the Holy Land many years ago. We visited
the Orthodox Church of the Ascension which overlooks Jerusalem from the
Mount of Olives, the traditional site of the ascension. An elderly monk
showed us around the church with its beautiful mosaics and icons, but he
saved what I’m sure he thought the best for last. Gathering our little group
into a circle, he waited till he had our attention, and then pointed to the
stone floor in which, even in the dim light, we could see, worn but
unmistakable, traces of two footprints which, we were given to believe, were
the very footprints of Jesus, wondrously burned into that spot as he left
his followers to ascend into heaven.
Now, students of scripture and
archaeology would raise an eyebrow, and certainly a question, at the old
monk's claim. The footprints are almost certainly the work of some pious
believer from the Middle Ages who wanted to make the holiness of the place
even more tangible than it already was.
Nearly sixty years have passed
since my visit to that church, but I remember it clearly -- remember
standing near those footprints made holy by the faith of countless believers
down through the ages, watching people bend low to touch them reverently. I
did it myself, but I must confess that a rather irreverent thought crossed
my mind. It was this: the message of the angels to Jesus' followers when he
left them to ascend into heaven - the one we heard in today's reading from
the Acts of the Apostles - was, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand there
looking up toward heaven?" Had those angels appeared to us, I wondered, what
message would we have received? Would it have been, "Why do you stand
there looking down?"
I don’t mean to be glib, and I
certainly don't mean to trivialize the Ascension by reducing its meaning to
a couple of directional adverbs. But looking up and looking down are more
than directional adverbs: they are symbolic words, highly symbolic words,
that are worth reflecting on this day.
The apostles stood there on
the Mount of Olives looking up toward heaven because they wanted to hold
onto Jesus. They were frightened at the thought of going on without him. And
our little group of pilgrims in the church that day - so taken by those
footprints in the stone - we weren't all that different. We wanted to hold
onto Jesus, too. In those few moments in that holy place, with the old monk
standing by, Jesus seemed very near: close enough to touch. Who could
blame us for wanting, in this way, to hold onto Jesus like the apostles of
old? But they didn't get to, and we didn’t either. That's not what faith in
the Risen Jesus is all about.
So may I give you another way
of looking at what this feast of the Ascension is all about? Forget for a
minute the apostles of Jesus anxiously staring at the heavens; forget, too,
my little group of pilgrims, eyes intently fixed on the ground, and listen
instead to St. Paul in today's second reading, and listen to Jesus in the
passage we just heard from Matthew's gospel.
In the reading from Ephesians,
Paul gives us an entirely new direction in which to look. He speaks of
looking inward - looking inward with what he calls "the eyes of the heart."
For Paul, the "eyes of the heart" are able to see so much more than these
eyes. They are able to see what he calls the hidden things of God. Listen
again to Paul's words: "I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may
give you a spirit of wisdom...so that with the eyes of the heart...you may
know what is the hope to which you are called, and what is the immeasurable
greatness of God's power in us who believe."
Now that may sound a little
abstract and theoretical to you, but I assure you it is not. Paul is telling
us that there is no limit to what the “eyes of the heart”, the eyes of faith
can see. They are able to look inward with a kind of `x-ray vision' and see
the wondrous workings of God's grace. The eyes of the heart are able, in
times of pain and darkness and grief, for instance - as well as in times of
abundant blessing - to see the hand of a mysterious, loving God at work.
Only the eyes of the heart can make sense out of life's most perplexing
mysteries because the eyes of the heart are really God's eyes: God's "great
and immeasurable power working in us."
So, my friends, you can see
why I suggest on this Ascension Day that looking up or down isn't half as
important as looking inward, looking with the eyes of the heart. Long ago,
St. Augustine, in a homily for this feast of the Ascension, put it this way:
“Christ ascended before the apostles’ eyes, and they turned back grieving,
only to find Him in their hearts!”
And then, one further
direction: look outward. That’s what Jesus told his followers to do as he
ascended into heaven. "Go and make disciples of all nations," he told them.
That, too, is what the feast of the Ascension is about.
The Ascension reminds us that
we who follow Christ are called to look outwards and to go outwards.
We are called to leave our comfort zone and to plant the seeds of the Gospel
in the very dirty soil of this world: soil that can be hostile to the
Gospel, or at least painfully indifferent to it. We are called to proclaim
good news that doesn’t always sound very good.
My friends, make no mistake:
the Ascension is about directions. Inward directions and outward directions.
It is about internalizing the gospel to the point that it takes root in us
and totally transforms us. And it is also about what so many of you do so
well: taking that gospel to the streets - preaching it by the love you give,
the stands you take, the poor you serve, the justice you promote. My
friends, challenged by the Word we have heard and fortified as we will soon
be by the Eucharist, let us together go out into this world of ours and do
our part to “make disciples of all nations!”
Father Michael G. Ryan
Pastor Emeritus
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