2) ASCENSION OF

JESUS INTO HEAVEN

What have been the most significant steps in your life?

What have been the steps in your life that were the greatest risk?

A small child crawls along the floor to the bottom of a flight of stairs. He looks up to the top and sees or hears his mother up there and realizes unconsciously, “I can’t make it up these stairs”. So he cries for “Help!” and his mother comes down and picks him up and takes him to the top of the stairs.

Sometimes a little child is scared when she’s picked up and lifted high up into the air – but then when she sees herself high above everyone and everything else, she smiles and laughs and feels mighty glorious.

The bread and the cup are lifted high at every Mass.

The best-man at a wedding lifts high his glass and toasts the bridegroom, his friend, and wishes him and his wife, “All the best and then some.”

And everyone at the wedding banquet does the same.

The athlete who wins the gold medal at the Olympics or the Special Olympics stands tall on the top box.

Statues are put on pedestals.

Our favorite pictures are framed and put on top of the television or on our book shelves or end tables.

Every sport and every school have their halls of fame.

Hospital employees, teachers, athletes, hard workers are acknowledge by being named “Teacher of the Month” “Athlete of The Week” or asked to stand up at a banquet and be acknowledged, appreciated, thanked, congratulated and applauded.

Life’s ascension moments are many.

Married couples celebrate their 25th and 50th anniversaries.

Bread rises.

The cream rises to the top.

In the first Rocky movie, Rocky Balboa climbs, ascends, to the top of the stairs outside the Philadelphia Art museum and raises his arms in triumph. The famous musical piece, “Gonna Fly Now”, composed and scored by Bill Conti, gets louder and louder and as he climbs the stairs till fills the theater. It presents to all the movie goers a preview of things to come.

Ascension….

A rising star….

At the stadium when a team scores a touchdown, a goal, a point, a homerun, a great basket, fans stand up, yell, and raise their arms in triumph as if they too made the play.

We are all connected.

We all want to ascend the stairs of greatness.

The Ascension is a feast of The More.

The Ascension is a feast that announces, “There’s much more to come.”

Jesus died.

That is not “The End”.

Jesus rose.

Jesus then promised The More – the Soaring More – an ascension into the next.
There’s always the next – the More.

Isn’t God wonderful?

Isn’t God mysterious?

Isn’t God always surprising us?
The banquet is never over!

Our mansion is waiting for us.

Ascension.