Homily originally presented May 13, 2018

Jesus ascended to the Father but remains with us on Earth!

I have a theological question for you.

What are the only manmade things in Heaven?

I’ll give you a hint.

In the Gospel of John (3:13), Jesus says,

“No one has gone up to heaven

except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.”

So ... what “man-made things” did Jesus, the Son of Man, take to heaven?

The Wounds we gave Him!

Recall how after Jesus rose from the dead He appeared to the Apostles in the Upper Room in His Glorified Body ...beautiful & radiant .. but still carrying His 5 wounds.

He said to them ... “put your finger into the nail marks in my hands ...

and put your hand into my side ... and see that it is really me.”

Yes, Jesus kept the wounds we gave Him ...

and when He ascended to the Father in His glorified Resurrected Body ...

He took the wounds with Him ... the wounds made by man.

So there are some manmade things in Heaven …

the wounds that we made to the Body of Jesus!

What do you think is the significance of this?

In the two accounts of the Ascension that we proclaimed today,

One from Acts of the Apostles and one from the Gospel of Mark,

both referred to Jesus standing before His Apostles in His Resurrected Body

and then being lifted up and taken out of sight into Heaven.

From Mark’s Gospel and from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians we also hear

that Jesus has taken His place at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.

That means that Jesus is present to the Father not only in His divinity ...

but also in His humanity … our humanity!

St. Thomas Aquinas said,

“The greatest miracle in the world isn’t that Jesus took on our humanity.

The greatest miracle in the world ... is that He kept it!”

Yes, He kept it and took it to the Father!

He didn’t shed our humanness when He returned to the Father.

No, in His great love for us, He carried His Human likeness with Him to Heaven.

What an honor! What a great assurance that we’ll be remembered always!

Jesus is right now seated at the right hand of the Father ...

in His glorified Resurrected Body interceding for us....

with the wounds that He bore for love of us ... always visible to the Father.

It’s as if Jesus were saying:

“Look, Abba, Father, this is what I did for your children, my brothers & sisters.”

How comforting to contemplate the deep love of Jesus for us …

that He would return to Heaven with our humanness.

And how encouraging it is to know ... that his great act of love

is always before the Father to make eternal intercession for us and our sins. 

Now in reading today’s Scripture accounts of the Ascension, it’s possible to get the impression that Jesus left us way back then ... and has been away from us ...

and will be away from us ... until He comes again in glory at the end of time.

But that is definitely not the case.

Recall that Jesus was not bound by the constraints of time and space ...

and was able to come through locked doors and appear and disappear at will,

In other words ... Jesus can be with us ... while not being visible to us.

As Pope St. Leo the Great said,

“Our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the Sacraments.”

So while Jesus left us visibly 2000 years ago,

He has remained with us sacramentally,

that is veiled under some physical sign, such as unleavened bread & wine.

So, just as Jesus never left His Father when he came down to earth,

Similarly, He never left us when he ascended into Heaven.

Jesus is in both places … Heaven and Earth, He is with the Father and with us.

Jesus can more than Bi-locate.

He can be anywhere and everywhere He wants.

Jesus is at the right hand of the Father and also in the Eucharist all over the world!

Think about that!            Where is Jesus?

He’s right here with us.

He left us ... but He never left us.

Consider this insight that comes from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who wrote,

“It would be a mistake to interpret the Ascension as ‘the temporary absence of Christ from the world.’” “Rather, ‘we go to Heaven to the extent that we go to Jesus Christ and enter into him.’” And so he concludes, “Jesus Himself is what we call heaven.”

Have you ever thought about that before? What a beautiful insight to contemplate.

Our previous Holy Father, the Theologian, is so wise.

Heaven isn’t just somewhere up in the sky.

Heaven is wherever Jesus is!

It’s this truth that moved St. Catherine of Sienna to say,

“Heaven is here for all those on their way to Heaven!”

We believe that the power of Jesus is there in all seven of the Sacraments. And we believe that the power and presence of Jesus is there in the Eucharist.

Which means ... each time we receive Jesus in the Eucharist ...

    we receive a taste of Heaven!

We all say that we want to go to Heaven. Well, we actually do ... each time we receive Holy Communion ... or more precisely … Heaven comes to us!

Considering this reality should give us a lot more to contemplate as we offer

our prayers of thanksgiving after Communion … Heaven has come to us.

This truth about God, about His constant presence with us, should wipe away any thought that the Ascension of Jesus to the Father in Heaven marked

the beginning of “a temporary absence of Christ from the world.”

Jesus is definitely not absent from the world. He is in Heaven at the right hand of the Father, and ... He is also here with us on earth.

He dwells in the soul of each and every baptized person, which is why

St Paul was able to say, “At baptism we become clothed in Christ.”

And as Jesus showed us at the Last Supper ...

He is truly and substantially present in the Bread and Wine blessed at every Mass.

By His design, Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist ... so ...

Jesus is present in our Tabernacle,

Jesus will be present on our Altar.

Jesus will be present on our tongues and in our bodies.

And He is also truly present in the Tabernacle of every Catholic Church around the world.

No, Jesus isn’t just in Heaven … Jesus is here with us too.

God is with His people, just as He promised all along.

The question is, “Are we with God?”

“Are we even looking for God?”

That’s really what God wants … He wants us to seek Him and find Him.

The Closing Prayer from the Divine Office this morning said,

“Father …you took Christ beyond our sight so that we might seek him in his glory.”

Remember how we used to play the game of hide and seek?

Someone we knew ... went out of our sight and we ... were supposed to go and look for him.           We knew he was there, and our job was to find him. 

Well, we know Jesus is here and there and our job is to find Him here and there!

To the extent that we find Jesus is the extent that we find Heaven!

Now if we believe that Jesus is fully human and fully divine,

then in His Ascension, Jesus took our humanity

and brought it into the inner life of God in a previously unheard of way!

So rather than Jesus’ Ascension being viewed as a time of temporary separation, the Ascension shows us that we now have a new intimacy with God.

The Ascension shows us that man has found an everlasting place in God!

This is the reason for all the joy of our Responsorial Psalm where we proclaimed,

“All you peoples, clap your hands, shout to God with cries of gladness.”

God has always been with us.

And now with the Gates of Heaven open ... we can always be ... with God!

How do we enter Heaven?

Just remember the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict,

“we go to heaven to the extent that we go to Jesus Christ and enter into Him.”

Notice that after rising from the dead, Jesus didn’t waste much time ...

before returning to the Father ... a mere 40 days...

showing us that fullness of Heaven

means being home with the Father and the Son.

So the fullness of Heaven is not here on earth.

Unfortunately, many people try to find Heaven here.

The fullness of Heaven is not here; the fullness of Heaven is with the Father.

By leaving the Earth and ascending to be with the Father,

Jesus clearly showed us where our focus in life should be …

not on the things of this earth, but on the things of Heaven above.

Jesus wants each one of us to be with Him, and with the Father.

Recall how many times, Jesus says in the Gospels, “Come, follow Me!”

That certainly implies that He wants to lead us somewhere!

Where does Jesus want to lead us?

He wants to lead us home to the Father!

That explains why all of us have this built-in yearning to go to Heaven.

Heaven is Jesus’ home … He’s home there with the Father.

Heaven is our home too … and we arrive there by following Jesus.

Do you really want to go to Heaven?  Then you need to go to Jesus!

As we celebrate the Feast of Our Lord’s Ascension into Heaven,

let’s realize that He really never left us.

He is there and He is here!

As our Lord and Savior, Jesus is up in Heaven at the right hand of the Father,

interceding for us with the manmade wounds He suffered for our salvation.

As our Brother and Friend, Jesus is here on Earth to nourish us with Himself,

and to guide us to be with Him and the Father in Heaven.

As you go forward, remember Pope Benedict’s wisdom:

 “We go to heaven to the degree ... that we go to Jesus Christ ... and enter into Him.”