Homily for the Solemnity of Our Lord's Ascension

Later this week, I’m looking forward to spending a few days’ vacation in Florida with two of my brother Holy Cross priests.  We’ve been invited to visit some friends from our Notre Dame days, a married couple and their three young children, including my goddaughter.

We already have plans for relaxing on the beach, enjoying good food and drink, and most importantly spending lots of time catching up.  But to entertain the kids – and to be honest because we’re like kids ourselves – we’ve also planned a visit to Universal Studios to see their new amusement park: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I’ve already been checking things out on-line, and I understand that visitors are able to walk the town of Hogsmeade and visit all the shops that Harry and his friends frequent in the famous books and movies.  And then inside the Hogwarts School itself, visitors are able to see replicas of all the magical objects that populate the famous stories.

Included in these magical objects is the Mirror of Erised, which appeared in the very first book and movie of the series.  The Mirror of Erised – which is Desire spelled backwards – doesn’t show a person as they actually are, rather it shows the person as they wish they were – it shows the "deepest and most desperate desire of one's heart."

When Harry’s friend Ron Weasley looked into the Mirror – because he was a middle child and was always being overshadowed by his brothers – he saw himself as Head Boy of the school and as Captain of the Quidditch Team: popular and well liked. 

And when Harry looked into the Mirror – because he had never known his parents who died when he was still an infant – he saw himself in the loving embrace of his parents and relatives.  Harry would sneak out of his room at night to sit in front of the Mirror for hours, just wishing that what he saw was really true.

But when Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School and Harry’s mentor, finds out that he was spending so much time in front of the Mirror of Erised, Dumblemore hid the Mirror and made Harry promise that he would never go looking for it again.

"Men have wasted away before it, not knowing if what they have seen is real, or even possible," Dumbledore told Harry.  "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live,” he said.

I can’t help but think of this fantastical story whenever I think about the feast we celebrate today and hear the readings we just heard about the Ascension of Our Lord.  We’ve just completed forty days since Jesus’ Resurrection at Easter and through the readings of the Easter season we’ve seen the disciples go from being frightened by Jesus’ execution, to confused and amazed by the empty tomb, and then to rejoicing at the reality of Jesus risen from the dead to die no more.

The disciples have benefited from Jesus’ continued teaching, they have begun to preach in Jesus’ name, and they have even been found worthy to suffer persecution, at the hands of the Sanhedrein, for the glory of Jesus’ name.

And now, as Jesus prepares to ascend to heaven, to return to the Father, He promises His Apostles: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  He gives them the great commission: “go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

But despite all that’s happened the Apostles are still stuck in their former way of thinking.  They are still trapped by their old hopes and dreams about how things were supposed to happen. The Apostles ask Jesus: “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” 

You see, they were still thinking of the Messiah as an earthly king and as a mighty warrior.  Like Harry Potter, sitting before the Mirror of Erised, they are focused not on how things really are, but on how they wish things were.

And so sure enough, St. Luke records in the Acts of the Apostles, that after Jesus ascended on the clouds, and “while they were looking intently at the sky … suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.  They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?”

Just like Harry Potter needed the wisdom on Albus Dumbledore, the Apostles needed the instruction of the angels to let go of what might have been, to let go of what they wished and wanted to be true, and to instead accept the gift they were, in fact, being given.

And indeed the Apostles were able to let go of their dreams of a warrior Messiah – they were able to let go of having Jesus with them in the flesh, the way they had known Him for so long – and they were able to accept that He was now with them in a different way, in the Spirit, and they did take up the mission they had been given by Jesus.

In the Gospel, St. Mark tells us that, “they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the Word through accompanying signs.” 

The Apostles were able to receive this great gift precisely because they were able to let go of their desire to determine how their lives would unfold – and in the end, what they found was that God’s plan was even greater than what they could have hoped for … the Kingdom was indeed established on the earth, but Jesus did it through them … not through might and force, but through the Apostles, even in their weakness.

Friends, on this Solemnity of the Ascension we are being taught the same lesson that Harry Potter learned staring at the Mirror of Erised, and the Apostles learned staring into the heavens.  We, too, can waste so much of our lives wishing and hoping for things that never were, and imagining how things might have been.  Or we can cling to the past that we have lost and that we long to return to, and never can.

But in the end, all this accomplishes is that it keeps us from living the fullness of life that Christ longs to give us in the here and now.  It keeps us from taking up our part, our role, in Jesus’ mission of proclaiming the Good News to all creatures.

The Paschal Mystery of Jesus, in which we all have a share through Baptism, doesn’t just involve the Cross of Good Friday and the new life of Easter Sunday morning.  It also includes these forty days we have just finished celebrating – a time of adjustment to a new reality – and this day of the Ascension, of letting go and refusing to cling. 

And then ultimately, as we will celebrate next Sunday, the Paschal Mystery includes our reception of the Holy Spirit.  Thus the Paschal Mystery always concludes with our living the fullness of life that Christ came to give us … if only we have the grace to recognize and receive that new life!

Brothers and sisters, we have all experienced loss in our lives and have known broken dreams. But if on this Solemnity of the Ascension we refuse to cling to what might have been – if we let it ascend with Christ to the Father – then we too can be opened so as to receive the fullness of His Spirit. 

And we, too, will find that the new life Christ wants to give us is even greater than anything we once had or once hoped to have. We, too, will live a life “worthy of the call we have received … according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”