Ascension of the Lord; Bulletin Column from May 24, 2020

Dear Friends at Saint Frances Cabrini Parish and Saint Mary’s Immaculate Conception Parish:

Praised be Jesus Christ! On the 24th of May, or the seventh Sunday in the Easter Season, in this part of the country we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord.  One cannot overstate what a major turning point, or transitional experience this was in the lives of the earliest Christians.  The Lord Jesus had been present among them and had engaged them in one manner for several years, very much like any other ordinary person.  They had grown accustomed to it and had perhaps come to rely upon it as their relationship with him grew. 

With the Ascension, as Luke tells the story, the Lord now enters into a whole new way of connecting with them and relating to them.  The inaugural act of his entry into this new mode and dynamic of being with them is the gesture of him raising his hands to bless them as he is “taken up.”  It is not really a gesture of farewell, though it might be easy to mistakenly think so.  No, it is instead the way that the Lord chose to communicate to them a very important point: that from that moment on, the posture or mode of interaction that he would have with his followers would be one of perpetual blessing with his presence.  As if to say: I am not going anywhere.  This is at the heart of the expression that Matthew recalls being spoken by Jesus at the very end of his Gospel story: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  The implication of both Gospel accounts is clear:  even though the manner of connecting to the Lord has changed, in no way is he any less present to his followers.  In Luke’s Gospel, his followers react with joy, and they return to the Temple to praise God.  They would not have done so had they thought Jesus had just said “good bye!”  Their way of connecting to him had changed, and they knew it, but they also knew that a new mode of connection had come into existence.

This is a long lead-in to a point that I have made previously over the years and will now be making over and over again in the weeks and months ahead about the nature of parish life, as we enter into next weekend’s return to Mass period under very different conditions than we have been used to.  Our customary modes of parish life and operations are radically changing. Some of them may never come back.  However, even though the mode or manner of our connections with each other and the Lord are shifting around us, it does not mean that the Lord is any less present to us.  He abides with us, and he will guide us through the changes that are ahead. As we become more and more aware of what is changing, I would like all of us to remember the gesture of his outstretched hands over all of us in his Church.  He says it to us again this weekend, and he says it to us over and over again: I am with you always, until the end of the age. 

-Father Nathan