Homily for Feast of Hope - Feast of Ascension and Mother’s Day

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of Jesus to heaven – Jesus leaves our earthly space to enter the fullness of the glory of God in heaven – taking our humanity with Him. Our humanity enters heaven for the first time.

Jesus – true God is also true man – and with human body is in heaven and we can look to recognize our future before us.

We must continue to believe what is beyond belief, hope in that which is more than we can understand.

The Feast of the Ascension of Jesus is a celebration of the Christian hope, a Feast of Hope… our hope to share in Jesus’ Resurrection

The Blessed Virgin Mary was the first to do so given her sinless state when the Blessed Mother was assumed into heaven body and soul…  that is also what awaits us… to be with Mama Mary in heaven, body and soul.

What Jesus has already accomplished in His Resurrection - is what we look forward to in hope at the end of time.

When Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead, every human body will rise, will endure the final purification and transformation, and will share in the new and resurrected state in which the faithful will be able to stand, body and soul, before the Most Holy Trinity and experience the fullness of the Beatific Vision forever.

If we live in Christ, if we die in Christ – then we will rise in Christ.  Let us continue strive and live our lives with Christ as the center and focus of our lives.

Jesus ascended into heaven. But He did not leave us. Just before the Lord ascended, he promised that he would be with us always until the end of the age… meaning when Jesus ascended to heaven, it does not mean He went up to heaven miles and miles away up there.  Jesus is actually closer to us in more intense presence… more than we can ever imagine.

Like the apostles, we have been commissioned to go out and preach with our lives that Jesus lives… bear witness with our every day life…

… that Jesus is risen indeed and we look forward to share in His resurrection.

After Jesus ascended and sent the Holy Spirit, the small group of disciples proclaimed Jesus Christ to the world. And Christ worked through them. And He worked through their successors. Now, Jesus works through us.

Proclaiming the gospel means far more than teaching articles of faith…

Proclaiming the Gospel means making the presence of Christ a reality in the world.  People do not become Christians through of the words of Christianity. People become Christians through the presence of Jesus Christ in us – working through us  … People experience God’s love, grace and mercy through us.

The Lord our God has given us the Spirit of Christ so that God can be with every believer and every congregation in the world.  We are grateful that Jesus went away – went up to heaven so to speak - so that our faith will grow strong in his service. 

St . Teresa of Avila said it so beautifully:

Christ has NO body now on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes with which he looks with compassion on this world.

Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Meaning – To All Christians, the Baptized, Christ has no physical body now on earth but yours, mine. We are the Body of Christ.

God is calling every single one of us to participate in His saving work and to use the gifts we have been given… in loving service of one another for the love of God who laid down His life for us.  Admittedly, to be a Christian is not easy – not a bed of roses, so to speak … does not exempt us from pains and sufferings… but God promised that He will be us through pains and sufferings.

Jesus said: Pick up your cross daily and follow me.

Romans 8:17 “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Do not be afraid to suffer.

When struggles or pains in life happens, we must see them as a means to a much greater good. Just as the pains of childbirth lead to the gift of a child, so the pains of bringing forth God’s will in our lives will lead to the presence of God Himself.

Patient endurance is a virtue that is especially important. For example, the pain  of overcoming an addiction, or the struggle of praying when we don’t feel like praying, or the struggle of forgiving someone who hurt us are all examples of pain turning into blessings. Joy is found in every difficulty we endure for the Kingdom of God.

Every experience we have unites us with Christ. But the joy is not always our first experience. It is only experienced when we patiently endure the situation we are facing.

Let us see them as a means to a glorious end. Endure the “labor pains”, so to speak, of the purification and mission God is calling us to by looking beyond the difficulties we initially experience so that we will see the end result that awaits us.

Let us pray that we patiently endure the crosses in our life and give us hope to see that from them God will bring forth the good fruit of eternal joy.

Talking about “labor pains” and “pains of child birth” and “making the presence of Christ a reality in the world” - Today, we celebrate Mother’s Day.

There is an old Jewish proverb that goes, “God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.”  Mothers are the embodiment of God’s love. 

A mother’s love is unconditional. Our mothers love us whether we are beautiful or ugly, smart or dull, able-bodied or handicapped; whether a success or a failure in society, whether we are grateful or ungrateful.

All these qualities of a mother’s love are for us a foretaste of God’s tender and untiring love for us. And this is what we are celebrating today.

We are celebrating mothers because through their hands God cares for us when we are in need; through their mouths God speaks to us words of consolation when we are heartbroken; through our mother’s heart God pours out to us his unconditional love that never gives up on us.

Today we acknowledge and appreciate our mothers and we say, “God bless you mothers.”

Of course, we cannot and should not forget spiritual mothers because the fact of life is that there are women who cannot be literally mothers – because of one reason or another… and so we also pray for them because they have been and they are so motherly in their own way.

Happy Mothers’ Day!

God bless…