Tag Archives: ascension

That’s a Wrap

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imagesThe pastor at the church with which we are affiliated in Denver doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, I’m afraid. He’s pretty important, at least within our archdiocese. He’s a monsignor, and told us Sunday that he had been appointed by Pope Francis to be some kind of muckity muck for our archdiocese during the pope’s Year of Mercy. But he doesn’t seem to laugh much. To his credit, when he does laugh, it’s usually at himself.

Nevertheless, he started his homily Sunday (on which we celebrated Christ’s ascension into heaven) by saying that Jesus could have shortened his remarks to the apostles prior to his ascending to heaven by simply saying, “And that’s a wrap.”

I’m not sure why, but that tickled me.

That’s a wrap. I’m all finished with everything. I successfully did all the stuff my Father asked me to do. I came; I saw; I conquered.

And it wouldn’t have been a wrap at all if he hadn’t ascended into heaven, because that, like the rest of his human life, is a model for our own lives. We are born. We live a good life. We die. And through the grace of God, we go to heaven. At the end of the day, just as Jesus, we are only here for a short time. And though we feel as though we are in control of the world, the world belongs to God, and we are only in the world, not of the world. We are really of God.

We flew home from Chicago on Saturday after spending a few days with Bill’s mom. We knew the weather in Colorado was going to be iffy, but the plane left on time and we kept our fingers crossed.

A few hours later, the pilot came on the intercom with words to this effect: Good afternoon. This is your pilot speaking. The good news is that we are only 80 miles away from Denver. The bad news is that the airport is socked in with a severe thunderstorm and DIA is closed until the storm passes. So we are going to fly around Colorado until it reopens or they send us elsewhere. It’s going to be bumpy, so suck it up.

Seriously?

I began my usual panic.

What if the plane runs out of fuel? What if we run into one of the other planes that is flying around Colorado awaiting the reopening of the airport? What if the turbulence is so strong that one of the wings falls off? Does this mean I’m going to miss watching the Kentucky Derby?

Poor Bill has his hands full.

But behind us was a mother traveling with three children. One was a babe in arms who slept through the entire thing. The other two were maybe early elementary school, and found the whole thing to be very exciting rather than scary. Oh, to be a child again.

At some point they began to entertain themselves by singing, in rounds, a song that they must have learned at church or maybe from a Christian school.

Praise be the Lord, we sing hallelujah. Praise be the Lord, we sing hallelujah. Praise be the Lord, we sing hallelujah.

That was it. There might have been other words, but those were the only ones they sang, over and over and over.

At first I thought, “Oh no. They’re going to drive me crazy because I’m already stressed.”

But suddenly I realized what they were saying, and I realized it was a prayer, whether they knew that or not. So I began singing it quietly to myself.

Praise be the Lord, we sing hallelujah.

We made it down safely. The plane had enough fuel. The wings remained firmly attached. I didn’t see a single other plane.  I missed the Kentucky Derby, but so what. We lived.

He is risen and is back with his Father awaiting all of us.

Praise be the Lord, we sing hallelujah.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

You’re Going Where?

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300px-Caravaggio_-_Martirio_di_San_Pietro

Caravaggio’s painting of St. Peter’s crucifixion.

Yesterday we celebrated the feast of the Ascension. It of course took me somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 minutes to find where the readings for the Mass were located in my prayer book. You see, the ACTUAL feast of the Ascension is 40 days after Easter, thereby making last Thursday the real feast day. However, last Thursday was also the feast of St. Matthias, so there were readings for his feast day as well. Confusing.

Thankfully we got to Mass early and the family in the pew in front of us with the two boys (one somewhere around 5 and the other seemingly newborn, and preemie at that) hadn’t yet arrived so I wasn’t yet distracted by watching the baby slowly slip out of the arms of his brother, whose mother inexplicably thought letting him hold his brother without her paying any attention was a good idea. I know, I know. I’m supposed to be praying. I was. Praying that Mom would turn around before little baby boy slipped much further. I seriously was poised to dive and catch.

At any rate, I found the readings and listened to Luke’s story of Jesus’ ascension from the Acts of the Apostles as well as St. Mark’s brief reference to the same thing at the end of his gospel. During the homily, when I should have been listening to our priest who is from India and very difficult to understand, I was instead thinking about the television show on Sunday nights called A.D. The Bible Continues. I’m recording it and watching it later, and so I recently watched the episode in which Jesus ascended into heaven. In the television show, his disciples sort of seem to take it all in stride. It seems to me in real life they must have been FREAKING OUT. After all, this weird thing was taking place in which Jesus disappears in a bright light, only a short time after he appeared to them having risen from the dead. My friends, it seems like a lot to digest.

But maybe even more than that, it seems like they must have been thinking, “OH MY LORD IN HEAVEN! What do we do now?” After all, Jesus had clearly instructed them to continue his teachings and to build his church. But unless they were considerably smarter than I, they must have found his teachings confusing and vague and how in heavens do we explain that Jesus ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND JUST NOW ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN?

I guess at some point they must have concluded that his teachings really weren’t that vague or confusing. Love God and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. That’s pretty much it.

But if I’m getting nothing else from the above-mentioned television show (besides noticing just how doggone gorgeous the actors who play Jesus and his disciples are which makes me think I’m committing at least a venial sin), I’m realizing that those 12 apostles and, in fact, all of Jesus’ original disciples and followers, were BRAVE. Really, when you think how brave they were, how can you doubt that Jesus was in fact the Messiah? Those men and women clearly were steadfast in their belief that Jesus is God and he died and rose to save us from our sins. They placed themselves in danger every day to tell the rest of the world this good news.

I was startled out of my reverie when I heard Father say, “And, in conclusion…..” Thank goodness. His conclusion was that we all need to continue the work of the early disciples and spread the good news about Jesus Christ.

While there is likely no way I could ever have been as brave as Stephen and Andrew and Peter and Phillip and Thomas and all of the others who died while trying to tell the world about Jesus, I can be brave enough to talk about my faith to others. I’m probably not going to get stoned.