Homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension, Year C

I don’t know how many of you were brought up with Warner Brother cartoons,

but at the end of the cartoon, as the music played, the message “That’s all

folks!” would come up on the screen. Is that how we view the Ascension:

Christ has preached the Gospel, died on the Cross and risen from the dead, and

now He goes up to heaven, and that’s the end? Well, if it is, someone hasn’t

been paying attention. Yes, you might have spotted that with the new

translation of the Lectionary, the Gospel reading begins with “The conclusion

of the holy Gospel according to Luke”; but then we have the sequel, The Acts of

the Apostles, from where we took our first reading. If Luke had been writing

today, or even put it into film format, you can imagine him beginning with

something like: last time, Jesus was with His apostles..., and then it shows the

scene of Him ascending into heaven. Now is the time of the mission of the

Church, and if you want to count the number of chapters, Acts has twenty-

eight, whilst the Gospel According to Luke has only twenty-four. Once Christ

has ascended into heaven they have to pray for the Holy Spirit, and when they

receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, then the mission begins in real earnest.

They have their work cut out. In the meantime, they are in the Temple blessing

God, an attitude of gratitude.

Pope Francis, in his document on evangelisation, Evangelii Gaudium, said that

we should be joy-filled evangelisers, and not look like we have just come from

a funeral. You can imagine the joy and the confidence of the Apostles after

Pentecost, and in Acts we see some of the scrapes they got into, being

imprisoned for their faith – and then God sending an angel to let them out

again. As St Paul wrote later on, you can’t chain up God’s Good News! Even

today, God is breaking down barriers. Previously we would complain about the

stranglehold the media had, preventing any decent religious programmes being

produced, with everything having a negative slant, trying to undermine

people’s faith in one way or another, with a supposed “new discovery” to add a

further dent to our confidence. Those with satellite TV could tune into Catholic

TV stations, such as EWTN, but now with the internet there has been an

explosion of good content. Even in places such as China, where the

government is officially Communist, Christianity is still spreading, just the

same as in the days of communism in Eastern Europe, when people would

smuggle Bibles across the border, and the future Pope John Paul II was helping

to secretly train new priests in countries where there were strong clampdowns.

An important part of the message Christ gives them to pass on is that of

repentance for the forgiveness of sins. One of the problems we have in our

society is that of spiritual and moral blindness. People think everything is fine

and their lives are fine, but they’re like blind people sitting in a room that’s

falling down all around them – as far as they are concerned, there’s no evidence

that anything is wrong. Someone once said it’s a bit like living in a society

where everyone is driving around with flat tyres. This is just the way cars

work. Everyone’s car is like this. When you go around in your car with

inflated tyres, people think it looks weird. Why have you done that? Nobody

does that. Your tyres are supposed to be flat and make all that noise as you

rumble down the road. But, as time goes by, looking at your example, some

people begin to realise that, if you inflate your tyres, you get a smoother ride.

You can go faster. The ride is quieter. And they’re prepared to give it a go

themselves. Our way of life may appear different to others’, but if we are

faithful, other people might begin to get curious, wonder why we are different,

and where the air in our tyres comes from – it’s Jesus. He allows us to leave

behind the baggage of our sins, and not just walk, or drive, but fly. You were

meant to fly, not to have to carry that big heavy bag on your back everywhere

you go. Life can be joyful, from deep inside. Life can have meaning, more

than just earning money, spending it, repeat.

Today, Christ ascends into heaven. But it’s not the end; it’s only just the

beginning. And even today, He is changing hearts and minds. You can’t chain

up God’s Good News. You might as well try to pass a law banning gravity.