Fr.Bob - Ascension Homily -GO!

Sacraments gift us as Catholics in so many ways. Sacraments make visible the invisible reality of God in this world and how God works in our world to build up the Kingdom of Heaven here. Sacraments make visible our work for God as well.

Today our Church celebrates the Feast of the Ascension. Luke writes about it in the Acts of the Apostles, but Matthew’s version from the Gospel is different.   When we read in Matthew about the Resurrection and then on to the end, it happens rather quickly. There are no 40 days. Jesus rises from the Tomb, encounters Mary Magdalene and other women, tells them to tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee. The disciples actually listen to the women, and this is where our Gospel for today picks up. This is also the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the Great Commission. The Great Commission to GO to the ends of the earth,; to spread the Good News.


Doubts arise as we live out our lives. We have questions. We don’t understand. We become frustrated. We become complacent. This happens in all aspects; our careers, our marriages and vocations, and certainly in our faith lives.

Our response to doubts will help to determine the direction of our lives.  We can become paralyzed by them or dis-spirited, and we remain stagnated.   Or, we can jump right in and wrestle with them, find some resolution and grow.


Notice in the Gospel, it says the disciples came to Galilee, to the mountain, encountered Jesus, worshiped him and doubted.  Now to be honest, not quite sure what they doubted, the Gospel is not quite clear. Yet, nonetheless Jesus tells them to GO!  

Here is our hope when we have doubts.  When we face doubts, we must GO and continue the good work. We TRUST that God’s work be done.   When we do so, we find what many people in our 2000 years of history have experienced: by working, by making visible what we believe in, we find consolation, we find answers to our doubts.

Mother Theresa of Calcutta had doubts. Her experience of God was not what she had anticipated. She experienced a sense of abandonment. Yet she continued her good works while wrestling with her doubts and darkness. She eventually understood that her feeling abandoned had helped her to empathize with the people who felt abandoned by the world. 


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Jesus too faced doubts in the garden. He was scared of what was going to happen. He trusted, he moved forward. He rose.

Don’t ever give up!

The Christ never ever abandons us. Nothing we can do or think we can do will cause God to not love us. God loves us always. This is the Good News.  Our Commission, our part: to make visible this invisible reality of God.  In our marriages, in our homes, in our schools, in our work, in our zoom meetings, wherever we are. Our Sacraments remind us of this. Our Sacraments celebrate this. 

When we question, when we doubt, this becomes an opportunity to grow! To move.  Go for it! Dive right in, ask the questions, with humility. 

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