by Fr. Edward Foley, Capuchin<\/em><\/p>\n During the church year, we celebrate a series Many of these feasts are relatively easy to comprehend Some of these feasts, however Part of the challenge in cracking this feast It does occur in the gospel we read today from Mark, It actually occurs twice in the writings of Luke: In the gospel of Luke, the Ascension seems to occur Thus, as some of us remember, So what is to be believed in this gospel puzzle I mean, we\u2019ve sent astronauts up there Because of the mixed biblical evidence Long ago a now-forgotten blogger irreverently wrote:<\/p>\n Ascension is a mystery to me. The whole idea of Jesus ascending through the air into heaven is hard for someone who has seen the pictures of earth from space taken by the Astronauts. Instead, I think of Glenda in the movie The Wizard of Oz, rising up into the air in her bubble with all the Munchkins waving and shouting “Goodbye, Goodbye” in their little squeaky voices.<\/em><\/p>\n She was not alone; another, reflecting on our first reading, wrote:<\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s like a bad B-movie \u2026 the camera cuts to an overhead shot of the apostles – dazed, mouths agape, like Gomer Pyle looking up at a skyscraper for the first time. Shazam, he’s gone; they all stood there looking up as if at Cape Canaveral for an Apollo space shot. We can almost hear them all say. “Our leader is gone. Now what?”<\/em><\/p>\n That comment reminds me of a now-defunct ritual When I was a kid, that ritual always left me wondering In years past I have answered that question Like millions of others around the world As you probably know, Its first flight was April 19th, More recently it completed its 5th successful flight, These successes came in the face of incredible challenge Besides being fascinated, even awed by the science here, The juxtaposition of Ingenuity and Ascension Jesus as the ingenuity of God And so God initiated a holy reboot, That holy reboot was the ingenuity of the Only Begotten, One of the tasks of NASA\u2019s Ingenuity That mission helps me reimagine It is common to imagine the feast of the Ascension However, another way to envision this feast Though obviously a sophisticated piece of engineering, This was not the secretive plan of a handful of geniuses, The Christian community is its own form Jesus, like the cosmos itself,
\nof what are called \u201cthe feasts of the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nfor they often recall some pivotal event in the life of Christ
\nsuch as his birth,
\nhis presentation in the temple,
\nor his baptism.<\/p>\n
\nare not as readily understood
\nsuch as the feast of the Transfiguration
\nor the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
\nSimilarly, I would suggest that today\u2019s feast of the Ascension
\nmight be a little more difficult to understand
\nthan feasts of his birth or his baptism.<\/p>\n
\nmight be due to the fact that Jesus\u2019 Ascension
\nis not reported in all of the gospels:
\nit is not in the gospel of John
\nand it is not in the gospel of Matthew<\/p>\n
\nbut virtually all biblical scholars would content
\nthat this 16th chapter was not original to Mark
\nand was added in the 2nd century
\nwhile Mark was originally written in the first century<\/p>\n
\nin Luke\u2019s gospel
\nand the Acts of the Apostles \u2013 our first reading today;
\nbut these two tellings have different timelines.<\/p>\n
\non the day of Jesus\u2019 resurrection.
\nBut in Acts, it takes place 40 days after that event
\nwhich would place it on a Thursday.<\/p>\n
\nwe used to celebrate \u201cAscension\u201d Thursday
\nwhich was a holy day of obligation
\nand should have taken place 3 days ago.<\/p>\n
\nand what do we make of a feast
\nthat seems to suggest that Jesus\u2019 body
\nis floating somewhere out there in outer space?<\/p>\n
\nand they haven\u2019t found it,
\nthe international space station hasn\u2019t bumped into it,
\nand the Hubble telescope,
\nfor all the brilliant pictures it has sent back from space,
\nhasn\u2019t photographed it either.<\/p>\n
\nand the challenging nature of an ascending body,
\nsome preachers actually choose to ignore the feast.<\/p>\n
\nthat Catholics used to enact on this feast.
\nSome may remember that after the reading of the gospel
\nan acolyte would snuff out the paschal candle,
\na symbolic confirmation that Jesus was now gone from the earth.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cso now what, since Jesus has left the planet?\u201d
\nAs an aging adult my theology questions are similar:
\nso what does this feast say about our relationship with God?
\nAnd how does it move us forward on our spiritual journey?<\/p>\n
\nby suggesting that Jesus needed to leave
\nso that the disciples could take up the mission
\nin building God\u2019s reign,
\nbut I have often wondered if there was something more.<\/p>\n
\nfor the past few weeks, I have been following the story<\/a>
\nof the Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity<\/a>
\nthe first powered and controlled flight on another world.<\/p>\n
\nIngenuity hitched a ride to Mars on the Perseverance rover
\nand arrived on the red planet on February 18th.
\nOnce the rover reached a suitable launch location,
\nit released Ingenuity to the surface
\nto begin a series of test flights.<\/p>\n
\nclimbing to about 10 feet, hovering a bit,
\ncompleting a turn,
\nand then landing.<\/p>\n
\nclimbing over 30 feet,
\nflying over 400 feet,
\nand coming to rest on a new landing site.<\/p>\n
\nas Ingenuity had to overcome dangerously thin air –
\nless than 1% of the earth\u2019s atmosphere –
\nextreme cold –
\nplummeting to minus 100 degrees F at night –
\nand flawed flight software
\nthat required both a fix and reinstalment:
\na 194-million-mile service call!<\/p>\n
\nI have been thinking about Ingenuity
\nwhile trying to imagine the significance of today\u2019s feast
\nfor myself, this congregation
\nand a global community
\nstruggling with pandemics and violence,
\npoverty and oppression.<\/p>\n
\nmade me wonder whether Jesus was the original manifestation
\nof the ingenuity of God
\nin which Jesus was delivered to earth
\nnot by a rover named perseverance,
\nbut through the cooperation of a young woman,
\nwhose perseverance through suffering and loss
\ninto her own final glory
\nis the wonder we call the Blessed Virgin.<\/p>\n
\nfaced his own multiple obstacles.
\nThe sometimes-thin atmosphere
\nof human goodness,
\nthe plummeting temperature
\nof human tolerance,
\nand the flawed software of humanity
\ndamaged by original sin.<\/p>\n
\nthis time from the edges of eternity
\nintended to enable humanity to fly, to soar,
\nto overcome the obstacles
\nthat prevent us from ascending
\nto the full height of our dignity and blessedness.<\/p>\n
\nwho took on all of those obstacles,
\nwho assumed our flawed nature
\nand taught us that even in the thin air
\nof our greed and pettiness and insecurities,
\nwe could rise together as a community of the holy.
\nHe showed us that his rejection,
\nhis suffering,
\nand his scars did not ground him
\nbut actually gave him lift \u2026
\nascending with a body marked by crucifixion,
\nanticipating our own ascent
\nthrough suffering, even death
\nin our journey to holiness.<\/p>\n
\nis to serve as a robotic scout,
\nsurveying the Martian terrain from above,
\neventually enabling astronauts to explore Mars
\nby alerting them to dangerous obstacles
\nand safe routes for their explorations.<\/p>\n
\nthe importance of today\u2019s feast
\nas both a support and encouragement
\nfor our individual and collective development
\nas God\u2019s holy people.<\/p>\n
\nwith befuddled disciples gaping heavenward
\nas apparently directionless,
\nawaiting the descent of God\u2019s Spirit
\nso they can figure out their new earthly mission.<\/p>\n
\nis to imagine Jesus going on ahead of us,
\nnot leaving us behind,
\nbut drawing us forward.
\nNot abandoning us to find our own way,
\nbut following him into an eternal way.<\/p>\n
\nI love the fact that NASA\u2019s Ingenuity
\nis designed with open-source software<\/a>
\nthat required the partnership of something like
\n12,000 collaborators
\nto get Ingenuity off the ground.<\/p>\n
\nbut the collective work of a global community
\nof engineers and scientists
\nwho together helped Ingenuity achieve lift-off.<\/p>\n
\nof open-source software,
\nan open-source kind of spirituality
\nthat is constructed through the collective partnership
\nof believers and collaborators
\nnot only throughout the world,
\nbut throughout human history.<\/p>\n
\nis moving out ahead of us,
\ncoaching us and coaxing us,
\nto ascend \u2013 to achieve what Eastern Christians call
\ndeification.<\/p>\n