Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Hebrews 9:24-28, 10:19-23; Luke 24:46-53<\/p>\n
Last Tuesday, twenty-one people,
\nnineteen of them young children,
\nwere killed in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
\nTen days earlier, ten people, all of them Black,
\nwere killed in a racist hate crime in Buffalo, New York.
\nAnd lest we forget, distracted by fresh horrors,
\nsome 4000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed so far
\nin Russia\u2019s unjust war in their country.<\/p>\n
I find myself thinking that it would be awfully nice
\nto be able to rise like Jesus up above this earth,
\nto enter a place of eternal heavenly rest
\nabove the sorrow and pain that human inflicts on human,
\nabove the violence and madness that infects us,
\nabove the self-interest and complacency that make us
\ngo on as if these sorts of things are normal or tolerable.
\nIt would be nice to escape this earth we have soaked
\nwith the blood and tears of the innocent.<\/p>\n
But the Ascension is not about escape.
\nIt is not about Jesus being plucked from this vale of tears.
\nIt is not about Jesus leaving behind the world\u2019s sorrows,
\nand even less about him leaving behind we who are sorrowing.
\nWe pray in our liturgy this day:
\n\u201che ascended, not to distance himself from our lowly state
\nbut that we, his members, might be confident of following
\nwhere he, our Head and Founder, has gone before.\u201d
\nHe ascended not to separate himself
\nfrom the blood and tears of the innocent,
\nbut to bring that pain into the healing light of God.
\nHe ascended not to leave us behind
\nbut so that he might be our great high priest in heaven,
\ninterceding for us before the Father through the Spirit.
\nHe ascended so that our lowly state might touch eternity.<\/p>\n
In the Eucharistic Prayer,
\nafter the gifts have been consecrated\u2014
\ngifts of bread and wine that we offer
\nas symbols of our loves and labors,
\nthe bread of life and affliction,
\nthe wine of joy and cup of sorrow,
\nnow transformed into the body and blood of Christ\u2014
\nthe priest prays in our name:
\n\u201ccommand that these gifts be borne
\nby the hands of your holy Angel
\nto your altar on high
\nin the sight of your divine majesty,
\nso that all of us, who through this participation at the altar
\nreceive the most holy Body and Blood of your Son,
\nmay be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing.\u201d
\nIn our celebration of the Eucharist,
\nChrist becomes once more present among us,
\nand is once more lifted up by the angels,
\nand, as our great high priest, lays our human lives\u2014
\ntheir joys and hopes, their anxieties and sorrows\u2014
\nupon the heavenly altar,
\nso that we, who receive him at this earthly altar,
\nmight taste eternity in him.<\/p>\n
In the days that have followed since last Tuesday,
\nvarious media outlets have published pictures
\nof the twenty-one people who were murdered.
\nEach of them is heart-breaking and gut-wrenching,
\nbut one has repeatedly caught my eye.
\nIt is the picture of Jacklyn Cazares, age nine.
\nIt is a picture from her first Holy Communion,
\nin her white dress, with a crown of white flowers in her hair.
\nShe smiles with the joy of that day,
\nthat day her life was laid by Christ on the altar on high,
\nthat day she was filled with every grace and heavenly blessing.
\nWithout in any way ceasing to be heart-breaking,
\nit is for me also an image of hope:
\nhope in Jesus Christ risen and ascended,
\nhope amid terror and strife,
\nhope for life and healing
\nin God\u2019s eternal light.<\/p>\n
Hope, however, is not simply consolation.
\nHope is also challenge.
\nHope challenges us to ask, even as we mourn,
\nwhat is God calling us to do?
\nHope tells us that, even if we cannot fix the world,
\neven if we cannot absolutely guarantee
\nthat such horrors will never happen again,
\nwe also are not allowed to do nothing.<\/p>\n
The U.S. bishops have noted several concrete measures
\nthat could be tried to reduce the incidence of gun violence:
\nfrom mandatory background checks for gun purchases,
\nto improved mental health services,
\nto federal laws that criminalize gun trafficking,
\nto an honest assessment of the effect on people
\nof the images of violence that pervade our society.
\nWe cannot know for sure
\nthat any of these things will save lives,
\nbut hope calls us at least to try.<\/p>\n
But that is not the only role that hope has to play.
\nSo many in our society live
\nwith a pervasive sense of hopelessness,
\na hopelessness that leads people
\nto lash out against the world.
\nThis seems to have been the case
\nwith the killer in Uvalde,
\nwho was bullied at school
\nand faced conflict at home,
\nwho saw no hope in the world
\nthat his life could ever be different.
\nHere is where the challenge of hope,
\nthe challenge of following Jesus,
\nbecomes really difficult.
\nThe governor of Texas called him
\n\u201cthe face of pure evil,\u201d
\nbut, looking with eyes of faith, love, and hope
\nwe should see a broken child of God,
\nstarving for hope.<\/p>\n
To see in this way is, of course,
\nimpossible for us to do
\napart from God\u2019s gift of grace.
\nBut we who have been lifted up with Christ,
\nwhose lives have been laid by him on the altar on high,
\nhave been filled with every grace and heavenly blessing
\nand given the mind of Christ with which to see.
\nAnd he calls us now, not to escape,
\nbut to be his body in the world,
\na world soaked with the blood
\nand tears of the innocent,
\na world hungry for hope,
\nhope that we make visible in our actions.
\nMay God strengthen us
\nfor this task to which he calls us,
\nmay God raise up the dead
\nand comfort the sorrowing,
\nand may God have mercy on us all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ascension is not about escape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":60038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-celebrandi-new-ws"],"yoast_head":"\n