Why Wait?

Ascension of our Lord
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Earlier in May I had gotten a couple tickets for me and Jacob, a friend of mine, to see the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.  I usually get to see this friend once or twice a year because of his (and my) busy schedules.  The entire week before I looked at my weather app each day, to see what it was supposed to be.  Would it rain? Would it be hot?  Would there be thunderstorms or sunshine?  Each day I’d check to see what the weather was forecasted to be, hoping that the game would be played and we could enjoy a game and each other’s company.  The day finally came, it was somewhere around 80 degrees and sunny when the first pitch was thrown, and we had a great time, except that the Tigers lost, 9-0. 

    In my reading of the Epistle today, I focused in on a phrase that St. Luke reported: “they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father.”  Why wait?  Why not send the Holy Spirit immediately?  Certainly, the apostles could have used it, as St. Mark notes that, even at this late stage in their discipleship with Christ, they still doubted.  Why did Christ make the Apostles wait nine days (as will we) for Pentecost and the celebration of the Holy Spirit?
    This is not to say that waiting meant sitting on their hands.  St. Luke reports that, after our Lord ascended, the apostles did was He commanded and returned to Jerusalem.  But then Peter proceeds to inform them of an impending election, to fill the spot of the betrayer, Judas.  Two candidates are put forward, they ask for the Lord’s help in choosing the correct one, and St. Matthias is chosen as the new twelfth Apostle.  Who knows what else happened, but we do know they remained in that Upper Room for much of the time, until Pentecost happened and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
    Waiting builds anticipation and heightens the senses.  It focuses one on what is upcoming.  My baseball game with Jacob had me attentive to details, hoping sure the event would happen and turn out well, and checking and praying for good weather on a twice-daily basis.  As children wait for Christmas, especially in the days between the end of classes and Christmas Day, there is an attentiveness and an excitement for celebrating Christ’s birth, but probably mostly for the gifts that they hope to receive. 
    When a couple gets engaged, we ask them to wait (usually nine months) before they get married.  This allows time for them to prepare, to make sure they understand the lifelong commitment they are entering into, and make sure that they truly will love each other with the sacrificial love that holy matrimony requires. 
    But then, once the day gets there, the celebration is all the more worth it and joyful.  Yes, it would have been nice to see the Tigers win, but I was really glad to spend time with Jacob and catch up since the last time we saw each other.  On Christmas morning, the kids are often the first ones up, with joyful readiness to tear off the wrapping paper with abandon and discover what presents they received.  And when the wedding day comes, the bride and groom are full of joy and happiness that all their waiting has come to an end, and they can celebrate being the couple, the one-flesh-union, that they had desired to be since their engagement.  Indeed, the emotions are often so high that there are tears of joy from both the woman and the man!
    That is the spirit in which we should wait for Pentecost, for our annual renewal of the gifts and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  We, too, should wait over these nine days, this primordial novena, asking for the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts, minds, and souls with His sacred presence.  We know that the Apostles, having waited nine days, began to speak in tongues, and were so elated that most thought them drunk (I always chuckle at St. Peter’s speech to the crowds, asserting that the apostles aren’t drunk because it’s only nine o’clock in the morning; having lived in East Lansing, I can tell you that nine o’clock means nothing on a football Saturday morning or St. Patrick’s Day).  Yes, this joy that overflowed was the work of the Holy Spirit, but was it perhaps also made possible by their waiting, their anticipation which opened them up for more of a gift of the Holy Spirit?  The amount of gifts that they received from the Holy Spirit could have been at least correlated to, if not caused by, their preparation and waiting. 
    We, living in 2022, are still waiting.  We are not waiting for the gift of the Holy Spirit.  We have received Him at Baptism and Confirmation in particular, but we also see Him at work every time Mass is celebrated.  Still, we can always increase our ability to receive the Holy Spirit, which should be part of our waiting each year from the Ascension to Pentecost. 
    But we are waiting for the Lord to return “‘in the same way as [the Apostles and the Blessed Mother] saw him going into heaven.’”  Our anticipation should grow each day in longing for the Lord to return to us, to set all things right, and to usher in a new heaven and a new earth, where pain and sorrow, death and mourning are no more.  We have waited for almost 2,000 years, and each day we are closer to when Christ returns in glory.  It seems like too long, as it probably felt for the Apostles and the Blessed Mother.  But this waiting can heighten our desire for the Lord, our desire for heaven, if we cooperate with the same Holy Spirit, and do not grow drowsy from our wait.  Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and enkindle in us the fire of your love, you who are the gift of the Father and the Son, and are co-eternal God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Gone and Yet Here

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    If there’s one thing that has proliferated during our pandemic, it’s memes.  Memes, if you’re not familiar with the word, is a picture, often with a short phrase, that’s intended to be humorous.  One that came to mind today (which I saw in April but would have also been appropriate earlier this month!) was: Anyone else feel like life is being written by a 4th grader right now?  “And there was this virus, and everyone was scared.  And then the world ran out of toilet paper.  Yeah, and then there was no school for like a month, and then it snowed.”  If we bring it up to the present day we could also include murder hornets and, sadly, the recent floods in central Michigan and wildfires near Grayling.  It does certainly sound like a bad story!
    As we go through the main points of the Gospel, it may also sound a little like a disjointed story.  You can imagine trying to explain the Gospel to someone who has never heard it before: There’s a virgin, Mary, who conceives a Son.  But it’s not conceived with her husband, but by the Holy Spirit.  And Mary’s Son, Jesus, is also God’s Son, but he’s not half-God and half-human, he’s fully God and fully human.  And Jesus heals people and walks on water, and multiplies bread and fish for the hungry, but then He dies on the cross.  But then He comes back from the dead, not like a zombie, but in a glorified body which can pass through doors.  And He visits some people during 40 days after the Resurrection, but then ascends into heaven.  But He’s not really gone, because His Body is the Church. 
    Christianity holds in tension so many things: Mary who is mother and virgin; Jesus who is God and man; Jesus who truly dies, but is truly risen from the dead; and what we celebrate today, Jesus ascended into heaven, but did not leave us orphans without His presence.  He’s gone, but He’s still here.  After all, we heard it at the end of the Gospel today: “‘behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.’”
    So how is Jesus still present with us, if, as we heard in the Gospel, He ascended beyond our sight into the heavens?  There are two ways.  The first we’ll celebrate next Sunday on Pentecost.  When the Ascension was celebrated when it should be (on Ascension Thursday, 40 days after Easter), we could point to the first novena in the church.  This is where you can insert the bad joke, where a Franciscan, a Dominican, and a diocesan priest are all asked individually by a layman, “Is there a novena for a Ferrari?”  The Franciscan, when asked, answers, “What’s a Ferrari?”  The Dominican, when asked, likewise answers, “What’s a Ferrari?”  The diocesan priest, when asked, answers, “What’s a novena?” 
    A novena is 9 days of prayer, usually for an intention.  There are nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost, and the Blessed Mother, Apostles, and disciples were praying for those nine days to continue the work of Jesus, without really knowing what they should be doing.  And their prayers are answered by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, where all gathered in that upper room are empowered to preach the Gospel.
    The Holy Spirit continues Jesus’ presence in the world.  Through the Holy Spirit, the Good News is still preached, freedom from sin is still granted, the hungry are still fed, the sick are still healed, the dead are still raised.  All that Jesus did on earth continues through the work of the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes that happens directly by the Holy Spirit, but sometimes it happens by people empowered by the Holy Spirit, like the first Apostles and disciples, who continue that work through the Church.
    And the Church is the second way that Jesus’ presence is continued on earth.  The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and is present in heaven with Christ at the right hand of the Father (what we call the Church Triumphant), is present in Purgatory, awaiting the time when they will be ready for heaven (what we call the Church Suffering), and is present here on earth, as St. Paul says, working out our salvation and trying to live the life of Jesus daily (what we call the Church Militant).  The Church continues the teaching of Jesus, frees people from sin through the Sacrament of Penance, feeds the hungry of body through food pantries, and feeds the hungry of soul through the Eucharist, heals the sick through the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, and prays for the resurrection of the dead in the funeral rites and Mass.  And in many more ways, the ministry of Jesus in Judea 2,000 years ago continues throughout the world.
    And that’s you and me.  Our call through baptism and confirmation is to continue the presence of Jesus in whatever way that we can.  People are no less hungry for Jesus than they were 2,000 years ago, and Jesus can satisfy their hunger through the Holy Spirit working through us as the Church. 
    Yes, there is that tension, that Jesus is both gone and present here on earth.  But His presence on earth is both the work of the Holy Spirit and us, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.  This week, let’s make sure that our lives reveal that Jesus is alive and that, while He ascended into heaven, He is still working and active here on earth!