This Sunday we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord, the moment when the risen Jesus, after forty days of appearing to his disciples, was taken from their sight and the work of the Gospel was placed into their hands. Saint Matthew gives us the scene on a mountain in Galilee. The Eleven gather. They worship. Some still doubt. And to these doubting, ordinary, far-from-perfect followers, Jesus speaks the words that shape every Christian life since: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Then he adds the promise that holds all of us steady: “I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Notice how Jesus does not wait for the disciples to feel ready. He does not wait for them to have all their questions answered or all their doubts resolved. Matthew is brutally honest. Some of them still doubted at the very moment he sent them. Yet Christ entrusts them with the mission anyway. Go. Baptize. Teach. Tell the story of what you have seen and heard. This is one of the most consoling truths in the Gospel: God does not send only the certain. He sends the willing.
Between the Ascension and Pentecost, the Church gives us ten days to live with the disciples in that strange in-between. They had walked with Jesus through his earthly life, witnessed his death, encountered him risen for forty extraordinary days, and now he is gone from their sight. The Holy Spirit, the Advocate he promised, has not yet been poured out. They are commissioned, but they wait. They have a mandate, but not yet the fire. In those ten days, they pray together in the upper room. They gather. They discern. And then at Pentecost, the world is changed forever. Ever since, every disciple of Jesus lives in the age of the Spirit, sent to continue what he began.
This is why our best and deepest growth in faith comes through sharing the Gospel, through facing our own doubts and the doubts of others, and through digging deep enough into our souls to touch the encounters with Christ that give our lives a true horizon. We do not grow into faith by waiting for clarity. We grow into faith by stepping out with the little we have, and trusting that the Spirit will meet us in the going.
I recently listened again to one of the great prophets of the last century. On April 4, 1967, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood in the pulpit of Riverside Church in New York and delivered a sermon called “A Time to Break Silence.” It was a costly homily. He spoke against the war in Vietnam, knowing it would cost him friendships, allies, and influence. He spoke anyway, because, in his own words, “a time comes when silence is betrayal.” Dr. King reminded that congregation, and reminds us still, that “we are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”
The fierce urgency of now. Sit with that phrase. Dr. King warned that there is such a thing as being too late, that procrastination is the thief of time, that history is littered with the bones of those who said “tomorrow” until tomorrow ran out. He was preaching to a nation, but he was also preaching to every disciple of Jesus in every age. When Christ sends us out, he does not send us to next year. He sends us today.
Look at our own moment. So much is happening in our world, in our country, in our neighborhoods, in our own families. There are fractures to be healed, fears to be answered, lonely people to be loved, young people searching for meaning, families struggling under pressures their grandparents never imagined. The Gospel has something to say to all of it. The Risen Christ has something to say to all of it. And he has chosen us, here at St. Simon, to be the ones who say it, by how we live, by how we welcome, by how we forgive, by how we serve.
This is the Ascension’s challenge. The two men in white asked the disciples why they kept staring at the sky. The question is still ours. We do not honor the Ascension by gazing upward in nostalgia for what was, or by gazing downward at our worries. We honor it by looking outward at the people God has placed in our path, and stepping toward them with the Good News.
In these ten days before Pentecost, I invite you to a simple practice. Each morning, ask the Holy Spirit to come. Each evening, ask the Lord whom you encountered, and whether you carried his presence into that encounter. Then on Pentecost Sunday, let us gather as a parish ready to answer the fierce urgency of now, with the doubters and the saints together, willing to go.
I look forward to seeing you this weekend as I was away at Clergy Study Week last week with Fr. Dat, Fr. Thanh, and fellow priests from the Diocese. We do this annually and it is a time set aside for spiritual renewal, ongoing formation, and priestly brotherhood. Our Youth Ministry is hosting Pancake Breakfast after all morning Masses on Sunday, please come and support them. Tickets are $5, you can pay at the door or pre-purchase online HERE.
God Bless,
Fr. Brendan