Feast of the Ascension - C 2025

The Feast of the Ascension seems to be a little strange for Christians.  We understand the importance of Christmas.  We understand the importance of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  But the Ascension?  Its meaning tends to elude us.  What exactly is it about?  Well, first let me tell you what it isn’t about: It’s not about Jesus leaving or going away.

We tend to define the Ascension of Jesus merely as His act of leaving behind His apostles as He concludes His work on earth.  We almost imagine Him saying something along the lines of “Good luck to you all!  I will see you when you get up here with me.  Sink or swim!”

But it would be better to look at the Ascension of our Lord not as an act of departure, but rather as an inauguration, as the beginning of a new way in which He accomplishes His work.  The Ascension of Jesus does not mark the end of Jesus’ ministry but rather a change in how He goes about it.

We have for our Gospel today the last few verses of Luke’s Gospel, one of the books describing Jesus’ ministry as He walked on earth.  And we have the beginning of another one of Luke’s writings in the Acts of the Apostles.  The story of the Ascension caps off the first book Luke wrote and it opens the second.  Jesus is at work in the second just as much as the first of Luke’s writings.  But what Luke highlights in the Acts of the Apostles is that Jesus is present in a different manner after He ascends into Heaven.

We must remember that just because we can’t see Jesus as the apostles did, it does not mean He is absent.  The Ascension was not Jesus leaving His Church.  Rather, it was Jesus exalting His humanity to the right hand of the Father, from where He now reigns as Head of His Body, the Church.  He is not distant from us.  Rather, He deepened God’s intimacy with our humanity.  His presence is no longer bound to one location in Galilee or Judea.  His presence is now more accessible and prevalent in our world because of His Church.

Far too many people today consider the Church as a mere religious non-profit organization.  They see it as something that’s managed by committees, budgets, and human resources departments.  They think of the Church primarily as a thing and not a person.  But Scripture never speaks of the Church that way.  St. Paul calls the Church the Body of Christ – a living organism, not merely a corporate institution.  Jesus is the Head, we are the rest of His members.  We are organically united to Him.

This means that when the Church teaches with authority, it is not merely the voice of a bishop or a pope or a council – it is Christ speaking through His Body.  When the Church celebrates the Sacraments, it is Christ who baptizes, Christ who absolves, Christ who offers Himself in the Eucharist.  When the poor are served in the name of the Church, it is Christ who bends low to wash feet and heal wounds.  The Church is not a replacement for Jesus in His absence.  It is the very continuation of His presence on earth.

This is the key truth we must recover in our time: Jesus is present on earth in His body the Church.  He has not abandoned us.  He has not left us orphans.  As He Himself promised: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20).  The Ascension allows Him to pour out the Holy Spirit which animates His Church.

So, if we want to see and encounter Christ today, we don’t need a time machine to go back to the Sea of Galilee.  We need the eyes of faith to recognize Him where He has promised to be: in His Word, in His sacraments, in His Church.  The Ascension is not the end of His close proximity to us.  It’s the beginning of a new intimacy – a closeness through grace, through the Holy Spirit, through the Church.

As we celebrate the feast of the Ascension, remember that it is not about a departure but an inauguration.  Christ is at work through His Mystical Body.  The more we love the Church, the more we love Christ.  The more we are united to the Church, the more we are united to Him. Because He is still here.  The Head has gone before us, but the rest of His Body remains, animated by His Spirit, nourished by His sacraments, and destined to follow Him into glory.