Pastor's Message

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord.  “When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted” [Matthew 28:17].

It’s amazing how often, in today’s readings, the disciples get things wrong.  The first reading tells us that they’re wrong about Jesus restoring the kingdom to Israel, and they have to be corrected about where they’re directing their gaze.  The Gospel tells us plainly that when they saw the risen Lord, “they worshiped, but they doubted.”

How often we find ourselves in the same boat:  We expect God to act in a certain way and are surprised when that doesn’t happen.  We’re looking for the wrong way and miss the miracle in front of us.  We come to our Sunday worship perhaps filled with doubts, distractions, and worries about whether certain things in our lives will really come together and work out.

Yet, as was the case with the disciples, God still acts through us and fills us with the “Spirit of wisdom and revelation,” helping us to recognize what Pope Benedict XVI claimed as the central message of this solemnity:  “Heaven is a person: ‘Jesus Himself is what we call “heaven” ‘”.  On this solemnity of the Ascension, may we all see a glimpse of the glory of God in our lives and discover ourselves in that glimpse.  May we have the joy of experiencing how, through the Ascension, Jesus has carried human nature into the very life of God and has transformed us forever.  God bless you!