(This homily was given on May 13, 2021 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47:2-9; Ephesians 1:17-23; Mark 16:15-20.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Ascension 2021]
Life is a series of losses.
I’ve come to realize that more and more as the years have passed. (Of course, life can also be looked at as a
series of “gains”—but that’s a subject for another homily!)
Think for a moment this afternoon about some of the things
that you lose during the course of your earthly life. As time goes on you eventually lose your physical
health. You lose your youthful
energy. You lose your hair (some of us
lose more than others). Sooner or later
you lose your job either through a layoff or a firing or through a retirement.
You lose your friends and family members because they
die. You lose your 20/20 vision. You lose some or all of your teeth. You lose your mental sharpness.
Losses are part of the fabric of this life—which is why it’s
so important that we learn how to deal with them effectively. If we learn to deal effectively with our
losses, we can actually have a measure of peace and happiness on this earth in
spite of their presence in our lives. However if we fail to learn to deal
effectively with them, those very same losses can easily overwhelm us and even drive
us to despair.
So there’s a lot at stake here.
In this regard, the apostles definitely have something to
teach us. Today we CELEBRATE the feast
of our Lord’s ascension. But quite
frankly I don’t think the apostles felt like celebrating anything on the very
first Ascension Thursday. I say that
because on that day they experienced the greatest LOSS of their lives: the loss
of the physical, carnal presence of Jesus.
For three years these men had come to rely on our Lord’s wisdom, power
and guidance in a very direct way. He
was there, with them—in the flesh. They
related to him as we relate to the people we have personal contact with every
day.
But that all came to an abrupt end when Jesus ascended into
heaven forty days after his resurrection.
And yes, he had promised to send them the Holy Spirit, that’s true, but
I don’t think that meant much to them at the time since they probably weren’t
too sure who the Holy Spirit was!
So what did they do?
How did they cope? Well, if you
read the Scriptures carefully you see they did two things in response to their
physical loss of Jesus: THEY LOOKED UP AND THEY LOOKED OUT! The Bible makes it clear that for the nine
days between the ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost
the apostles met together in the Upper Room to pray. In other words, they “looked up” to the
Heavenly Father for the strength and help they needed—and in the process they
ended up making what amounted to the very first novena!
At the same time they also “looked out” to one another (and
to Mary, our Blessed Mother, who was there with them in the Upper Room). They gathered as a group not only to pray,
but also to console one another, to encourage one another, to build up one
another.
Based on my experience of being a priest now for 35-plus
years, I would say that the people who deal most effectively and most
successfully with their losses in this life are those who do what these
apostles did: they’re the people who make the effort to “look up” and to “look
out” every day. They’re the people,
first of all, who have an active prayer life—who take prayer seriously—who try
to pray every day with their hearts and not just with a lot of words. That is to say, they “look up” often.
They’re also the people who don’t make the mistake of trying
to live their lives as “Lone Ranger Christians”. Quite oppositely, they consistently “look
out” to others. These are people who do
not allow themselves to become isolated.
They’re people who are humble enough to admit that they need the support
of their brothers and sisters in Christ to deal with their difficulties. And they’re people who are smart enough to
reach out and actively seek that support.
If we’re not coping very well with our own personal losses
at the present time, chances are we’re falling short in one of these two areas. Either we’re not “looking up” or we’re not “looking
out” as we should be. May the example of
the apostles motivate us to change that, so that in the midst of our losses we
will be able to gain at least a measure of peace and happiness—the peace and
happiness that we all long for in our hearts—and that God, in his love and
mercy, wants to give us.