5/17/2015 – The Ascension – Acts 1:1-11, Mark 16:15-20

     We are quickly coming to the end of our Easter season, so it’s a good time to think about what we’ve learned from our Scripture readings these last 7 Sundays.  On Easter morning, when Mary of Magdala came to Jesus’ tomb early in the morning to find it empty, his disciples started realizing that something new and radical and unexpected was taking place.  As the resurrected Jesus started appearing to them, in places like the locked room where the apostles were huddled in fear, or to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, they started receiving a lot of answers to their questions and doubts. But a lot of things still didn’t make sense. The resurrection was a new reality with Jesus appearing and disappearing in the disciples' presence, walking through walls and showing up in locked rooms. Today, we hear the beginning verses from the Acts of the Apostles describing Jesus’ ascension into heaven, of the cloud taking him out of their sight as the disciples watch from the earth below, shocked at what they see.

       We all try to make sense of our faith and of our world, which seems to get more difficult all the time.  We try to make sense of who Jesus is and what place he has in our lives.  As the disciples stood there watching Jesus ascending in the sky, two men in white appeared, asking:  “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?”  They were being called to action, to live out their faith, to be Christ’s presence here on earth.  But I wonder if the Ascension we are celebrating today just commemorates an historical event that happened about 2,000 years ago, or, if it is supposed to have a real affect on our lives today.  St Augustine answered that question in words he wrote in the early 5^th century about the Ascension: "Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him…. If you’ve risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth. Just as (Jesus) remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled."

       We live in a changing world and a changing Church, and that can be scary. A couple of days ago, an article on the CNN news website address a new study released by the Pew Research Center, stating that those who identify themselves as Christian in our country are dropping at an alarming rate.  Only 70% in the survey identified themselves as Christian, down from 78% the last time the survey was taken 7 years ago. And the Millennials, those born in the 1990s, show the biggest drop.  Obviously, we can’t look at this survey and ignore the reality around us.

        It brought to my mind this cross I recently came across in a box of my things, a  cross that a priest gave me when I was serving as a lay missionary in Canada. It is more than 100 years old, having been passed down from priest to priest. It was originally worn by an Oblate of Mary Immaculate priest on a cincture tied around his cassock.  This priest had worked with the Dene people in northern Canada in Manitoba more than 100 years ago.  He traveled by dogsled to get to the different mission sites in the middle of winter.  I treasure this cross and think of the other priests who had it before me, and how we are all knit together to our faith, to the Holy Catholic Church.  And I think about it, here I am, having grown up in Chicago and southern California, and I’ve served as a missionary in Canada, Ecuador, and Mississippi.  My faith led me to all those places, the same faith that is there for us in the changing world. Led by the Holy Spirit and by our Pope and our Bishops, our faith reacts to the changing world around us.

         I have mentioned to you this book called Rebuilt that a lot of people in the Church have been reading in recent years.  On the top of this book is a quote by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the very beloved Archbishop of New York and one of the most outspoken, honest leaders in our American Catholic Church.  Archbishop Dolan said, “If you love your parish, read this book.” And that is what got me to reading this book and thinking about our parish here at St James. I love our parish and I want to have a vision to give you as your pastor.  I’ve mentioned to all of you that when I get up in the morning I give thanks – I give thanks for the Lord allowing me to serve him and his people as a priest this day, and I give thanks for the people of our parish.  Think of the beautiful new doors we recently put up in our parish.  When a visitor comes through those doors and enters our parish's worship space, I want him to feel a warm welcome from us, and I want him to truly feel that he has been touched by God during our celebration of the mass. Our parish of St James has a lot of wonderful traditions and history, and to be true that history, I want us to be in tune to where the Holy Spirit is calling us to be disciples in the here and now, to renew and re-energize our parish community.  There are so many people who love our parish and want our parish to be the best it can be.  The famous evangelizer Matthew Kelly says that each parish should be the best version of itself.  And that is my dream: for St James to be a place where we love God, where we love our neighbor, where we live as disciples, where we make disciples.  It is as simple as that.  One of the things our parish council will be working on is a mission statement.  And we want our mission statement to be simple enough so that every man, woman, and child will be able to say it from memory.  I encourage you to read this book this summer.  From this book, we will get ideas and focus.  It will help flesh out s vision for our parish.  We will be called to make changes to be sure, but all of those changes will come through prayerful discernment and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  It is amazing the change we have in our church just by those new doors that I've mentioned.  That decision to get those new doors was driven by a dream that several parishioners had.  I’m amazed at how those door can have such a great affect on our church environment.  My heartfelt dream is to have other changes like that in our parish. 

         Below the title of the book Rebuilt is its subtitle: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, Making Church Matter.  We want to awaken and energize and invigorate every single person sitting here in the pews.  We want to reach out to the lost: to the fallen away Catholics, to our members who have stopped coming to mass on a weekly basis, to the ones searching for a church home, to the ones intrigued by Pope Francis and our Catholic faith, to the ones looking for something in their lives even though they can't name what they are searching for.  We want to make Church matter.  We want to make our parish be all it can be.  All of you are invited to be a part of this. All of you. This is just the beginning.  There will be more information to come. We will keep you informed of all progress we are making.  I invite all of you to start be reading this book and by feeling hope and encouragement today. 

        In the Gospel today, Jesus tells us to go out to the world and proclaim the Gospel to all – to every living creature.  That is our mission.  And with a focus and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that is what we are going to do.