Ascension practice homily

Dear Friends,
I know its been a while--I'm terrible at blogging I've realized--but I wanted to share with you a homily I gave for class a few weeks ago in anticipation of the great feast we celebrate tomorrow (on Sunday in the States).  Pentecost is almost here!  Get excited!

Ascension Homily

Acts 1:1-11, Ps 47:2-9, Eph 1:17-23, Mk 16:15-20

 Right up till the end, the Apostles didn’t get it.  During Jesus’ lifetime, they thought he was going to defeat the Romans and usher in a new earthly kingdom—even though Jesus told them many times that he was going to suffer and die.  When Jesus was captured and sentenced to death, most of them fled, and even after the resurrection they still couldn’t believe what had happened.  Jesus was with them for 40 days explaining the true meaning of the Scriptures, showing miraculous proofs of his resurrection to encourage their faith, and still we hear them ask in our first reading, “are you going to restore the kingdom now?”  They just didn’t get it: no matter how many times Jesus told them, it wasn’t going to make a difference—they needed something more to really understand who Jesus was.  They needed the Holy Spirit.

            What did the Holy Spirit do for them that Jesus didn’t?  The second reading gives a clue: The Spirit gives KNOWLEDGE of Jesus…so that we may “KNOW what is the hope that belongs to His call.”  The disciples knew a lot ABOUT Jesus, and even lived with Him, but didn’t really KNOW fully who Jesus was until the Holy Spirit revealed it to them.  It seems that when the Holy Spirit taught the apostles, the knowledge didn’t stay in their heads, but went to their hearts so that they finally KNEW Jesus was the Lamb of God who took away their sins.  The Holy Spirit then, as the Wisdom of God, breathed this saving knowledge deep within their souls so that they could no longer doubt—they knew personally that Jesus was the Son of God and had truly taken away their sins by His sacrifice on the cross.  They KNEW that they were nothing but sinners, but Christ in His infinite love redeemed them and all of humanity from their slavery to sin.  This deep knowledge and conviction gave them unimaginable joy and power—the power to proclaim the Gospel boldly with conviction and faith, the power to be courageous in the face of adversity, the Power to overcome the evil One in prayer, the power to be a witness.  This is what Jesus meant when he said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.”

But after the Ascension, they didn’t have this power.  Jesus tells them in the Acts of the Apostles to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  This is wise: if they were to go out and preach the Gospel immediately, it would have been disastrous: they were still fearful, still uncertain about who Jesus really was, even after so much evidence in front of them.  We experience this same truth ourselves when we try and witness our faith to others don’t we?  We might know all the right theology, the right arguments, and even be able to demonstrate how reasonable Christianity is—but unless we KNOW that God loves us personally and have experienced it, we can’t transmit that saving message to others.  Without this Power of the Holy Spirit and the true knowledge He brings, we can’t be converted ourselves, much less convert the world.

But we don’t need this Power just to do miraculous things.  No, we need the Holy Spirit to do very simple things—even to pray or believe in Jesus at all!  The disciples lived with Jesus and saw incredible things on a daily basis, but they still had a hard time believing.  Peter still denied Jesus 3 times when asked if he knew Jesus; Judas still betrayed him, the rest of the disciples still fled from the Garden.  We are no better.  We deny Jesus with our silence when we hear people ridicule our faith and say nothing; we betray him when we sin against our neighbor; we abandon Him in the poor, the suffering, and the outcast when we turn a blind eye to their plight.  Yes, brothers and sisters, we need the true knowledge of the Holy Spirit so that we are convicted of God’s deep love for us and only then can we have the power to give that same love to our neighbors.  You can’t give what you don’t have. 

The full outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a gift that God gives us in the Sacrament of Confirmation; but if your experience was like mine, the experience of Confirmation wasn’t one of fire descending from heaven and speaking in tongues.  Why not?  Maybe because we don’t get it.   We should ask ourselves if we really believe that these Scriptures are telling the truth and if this Power of God is real and if God’s love is real and can change our lives—and then the next question is, “Will I ask God for His love and Power to come upon me?”  God respects our freedom; he wants us to ask for the Holy Spirit.  Brothers and sisters, if you are hungry for more, if you want to KNOW that God is real and KNOW that He loves you and will never leave you no matter how often we fail; ask God with me now for the Holy Spirit’s love and Power.  God is not stingy with His gifts, but lavishes them upon us.  The only thing preventing God from loving us is our own stubbornness!  Let Him in!  He wants to show us His love so much that He will humble Himself to be hidden behind the appearances of bread and wine on this altar so that we can physically taste His love for us!

As a parish, we will be praying the Novena to the Holy Spirit after mass for the next nine days.  Just like the first apostles, we will pray and wait for the Holy Spirit with expectant faith.  Don’t wait another day to experience the fullness of life that God wants for us; we have been living in fear and uncertainty for long enough.  Come Holy Spirit!  Fill the Hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love!