A New Way of Being With Jesus

 

Deacon Dave · A New Way of Being With Jesus

Homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, May 17, 2026. Gospel of St. Matthew 28:16-20. Theme: A New Way of Being With Jesus 

 Compared to Easter, the Ascension of Christ into Heaven can seem anti-climatic. What I mean is, we spent 40 days of Lent getting ready for Easter. And then we had a marathon of liturgies throughout Holy Week which led us into the 50-day long Easter Season. So, by the time we arrive at the celebration of the Ascension of the Lord, it can seem almost like an afterthought. But in reality this is far from the truth! However, before getting into why the Ascension is such an important event, let’s first deal with what most people get focused on about it: Jesus shooting up into the sky like a rocket! Many wonder why Jesus didn’t just disappear into thin air after saying His goodbyes instead of staging the dramatic event that we read about in the Gospels. Well, the reason for this is twofold. 

 First, in the 40 days after Easter Christ did indeed appear and disappear before the eyes of his disciples several times. It was what they came to expect from Him. It became a case of “now you see Him, now you don’t”…but always with the assurance that He would return. If Jesus had simply vanished from their sight on that Ascension Day, they would have been expecting to see him again real soon. And so he had to convey to His disciples that this time it was going to be very different. 

 And second, we need to remember that God always deals with people where they are at and according to what they understand or know. And so Jesus needed to express the significance of His Ascension in a way that delivered a definite message to first-century Jewish minds. You see, back then they thought that Heaven (as an actual territorial place) was just above the atmosphere, beyond the sun, moon and stars. They also called God the “cloud-rider” (see Psalms 68 and 104). And so as our first reading informs us, the ascending Lord shot up into the sky and rode a cloud into Heaven. So, in this way they were shown visually and unmistakably that this time His going away would be different and final. It would be the end of the era of life with Jesus on planet Earth and the beginning of a new one with Christ as Lord of Heaven. 

 Ok, so now that we’ve dealt with the symbolic mechanics of the Ascension, let’s go back to why it is such an important event. As I once heard a priest say, “The Ascension takes the training wheels off of Easter and lets us ride the Christian life at full speed.” What he meant was that today’s Solemnity is the icing on the cake of Easter, so to speak, because it takes up where the Resurrection left off and expands its significance for us in three ways. 

 First of all, it enabled Jesus to carry out His mission as the Universal Savior who is available to all people of all time and in every place. When He lived His physical life on Earth, Jesus of Nazareth was very much tied to a particular group of people (the Hebrews) and limited to a very localized section of the planet (the Mediterranean Middle-East). His movements were constrained by time and space as well as by geography and politics within the Roman Empire. However, the Ascension has freed Him from all those restrictions! He no longer belongs to any one country but is King of All Nations. He is no longer simply the Messiah of Israel but is Savior of All Peoples. He is no longer bound to communicate in any one language or owned by any one culture. He can now speak to every human heart and be present in every village, city and nation. His healing embrace now encompasses all the world and every single person in it. 

 Second, the Ascension transforms Christ’s way of being with us from the physical to the spiritual, from the visible to the invisible. In His farewell speech at the Ascension, which we hear in today’s Gospel, Jesus promised that He would remain with us always, even until the end of the world. How so? Well, at the Last Supper He said that He would abide within us through our obedient love for Him. In addition, He promised to give us the Indwelling Holy Spirit as our Bond of Connection with Him. And of course there is His ever-abiding Presence in the Holy Eucharist, which is real but invisible, for what our eyes continue to see is still bread and wine even though the reality of it has changed. These modes of invisible but real presence only became possible once He left the physical realm and re-entered into the heavenly. 

 Thirdly, the Ascension foretells that what happened to Jesus will also happen to us. It assures us that there is a real and eternal life awaiting us beyond the grave. The Ascension shows us that this new life will be one that is experienced in both body and soul, and that where Jesus has gone, we His disciples, will also follow. This is why Jesus said at the Last Supper, “I am going to prepare a place for you, that where I am you also may be.” The Scriptures teach us that being ascended into the glory-life of Heaven is not something reserved for just Christ alone but that it is also our destiny as Christians. St. Paul emphasizes the truth of this teaching often in his many letters. 

 So hopefully, we can see that the Ascension is an important part of the Easter Season and is, in reality, its crowning jewel. It assures us that though the Risen Lord is gone from our sight, He is definitely not gone from our lives. He is more present to us now than He ever could have been before, because He is now able to dwell within us instead of just walking beside us, as He was living on planet Earth. This new form of an intimate personal relationship with Christ is made possible by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, which is why the Ascension always points us to Pentecost, which we will be celebrating next Sunday. Jesus Himself pointed to Pentecost at the time of His Ascension, telling the disciples to go back to Jerusalem and pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So, let’s follow the Lord’s instructions and spend the coming week in prayer for a renewed outburst of the Holy Spirit within each one of us!

Getting to Know Our Divine Defense Attorney

 

Deacon Dave · Getting to Know Our Divine Defense Attorney

Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter, May 10, 2026. Gospel of St. John 14:15-21. Theme: Getting to Know Our Divine Defense Attorney

In today's Gospel, John brings us into the Cenacle, which is the name given to the upper room in a Jerusalem house where Jesus and His Apostles held the Last Supper. He shares with us some of his memories of the Lord’s farewell speech given to him and his eleven companions on that unforgettable night. You can sense a tone of deep love and concern in the words of Jesus, as He speaks to them about a future without Him physically present in it. But He sought to console and uplift them by speaking of several ways in which their relationship with Him would continue and actually deepen. Chief among these was the promise of the Holy Spirit. 

 Jesus called the Spirit a “Parakletos” which our Liturgy translates into English as “Advocate”. I find this extremely interesting because a “parakletos” was a Greek lawyer, a legal counselor, and more specifically a defense attorney. A paraclete stood next to his client, whispering into his ear what he was to say and how he was to act in the presence of a judge. Now, that makes me wonder …why in the world did Jesus think that we, His disciples, would need the services of a D.A. (which in this case stands for a Divine Advocate)? Well, it was because He knew that the world would treat us no better than it treated Him. He knew that those who worship the world’s “trinity” of power, money and fame would harass those of us who speak out for the persecuted, the poor and the vulnerable. He wanted us to know that when we are called to stand before the court of public opinion the Advocate would be right by our side, inspiring and enabling us to speak the truths that the world needs to hear. 

 And the most important truths that people today need to hear is that they are immensely and personally loved by God. Each and every one of them! As St. Peter tells us in our Second Reading, we need to share with them the story of Jesus Christ, who is the very reason for the hope that is within us. Because the sad reality is that so many of them have never heard this and do not know Him! They have no clue as to how precious they are in the eyes and heart of God. They have been misled by the world to believe that their worth and value is found in what they look like or in their social status or by how much money they have. And so it’s up to us to share the truth with them so that they, too, can begin to have joy in their hearts and hope for their future. 

 This is a big responsibility and an urgent task that we have been given for nearly half of the world’s population has never heard of the Good News of and about Jesus. But we can rise up to the task because we have been given an Advocate, the Spirit of Truth who dwells within us. He will empower us to speak and act. He will provide us with counsel and direction giving us the right words to say in every particular circumstance and to each particular person. However, our sensitivity to the Spirit’s inner voice will depend upon how well we have trained ourselves to listen to and follow His inspirations and directions. You see, this sensitivity can only develop within us to the extent that we devote time to the practice of daily personal prayer from the heart. To really hear our Paraclete we have to make room for solitude in our day and set aside time for prayer and meditation. 

 And this is why I think it's very appropriate that we are hearing this Gospel in the month of May which is dedicated to our Blessed Mother Mary. No other disciple of Christ was as open to the Spirit of Truth or as obedient to the counsels of the Advocate as she was. Her relationship with Him was so intimate, so total and so personal, that she has been called by analogy the “Spouse of the Holy Spirit”. One of the titles we Christians have given to her over the centuries is Our Lady of Solitude, which highlights her devotion to prayer and listening. We would do well to turn to Mary in our prayers this month asking for the grace to find space for this solitude in our own lives so that we can hear the Spirit more clearly and become better bearers of Christ to those who do not yet know Him.

Living With Trust Not Trouble

 

Deacon Dave · Living With Trust Not Toruble

Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter, May 3, 2026. Gospel of St. John 14:1-12. Theme: Living With Trust Not Trouble 

 There’s a heck of a lot in today’s Gospel that could provide us with countless hours of reflection but I am going to limit myself to Jesus’ opening words that begin with, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Notice the timing of when He said this. It was at the Last Supper when He was well aware that He was about to undergo His cruel Passion. And He knew the terrible havoc this would wreak on his companions. On their part, the disciples saw the seriousness on the Lord’s face and heard it in His voice. They sensed that something terribly upsetting was coming their way. It’s important to realize that it was within this setting that Jesus was inviting them to focus on faith and keep their hearts untroubled. 

 I think what He was counseling was to not let the stress and worry that so easily fill our minds descend into our inner selves where it can rob us of peace. He knows we obviously can’t control what goes on around us so He is telling us to take charge of what happens within us. The many external disturbances of life can only settle in our hearts if we stubbornly hold onto the idea that we are in control of everything. In other words, the stress in our heads becomes stress in our hearts when we persist in the idea that we can fix any situation and solve any problem based on our own merits. And the reason this stresses us out is because deep down in the very recesses of our being we know that this isn’t true! A simple reality check should remind us that there are things we struggle with that are not of our own doing and so they also cannot be of our own undoing. We may be powerless in the face of these sufferings but we are definitely not helpless. 

 And this brings us to Jesus' next few words in today’s Gospel, “Have faith in God; have faith also in me.” Here is where we find the help we need to prevent head-stress from becoming heart-stress. He is inviting us to trust in God (He means the Father) and to likewise trust in Him (because, as we say, “like Father, like Son”). In the Bible, the word “faith” can also be translated as “trust” because the original Greek word means both things. In our American slang we have the same double-meaning for these words. When we tell someone “I believe in you” we are saying in effect, “I trust in your ability”. And so we turn to Jesus and tell Him, “I believe in You…I trust in your ability to help me.” This attitude isn’t a kind of placebo to get through a tough time; nor is it a kind of mind-game to help us transcend the issue at hand. Quite the opposite, faith means dealing with our reality head-on, but confident that God will enable us to face it and get through it in a constructive positive way. The first step in embarking upon this challenge of faith is to mindfully and intentionally surrender ourselves to the power and the care of God. In other words, to trust in Him. 

 But we need to be patient and realize that learning to trust isn’t something that happens overnight or without effort. We know that this is true from our own everyday human experiences. The people in our lives whom we have learned to trust have earned that level of confidence from us not simply by their words, but by their actions. They have shown us in times of difficulty and vulnerability that they were trustworthy by being with us, being there for us and loving us no matter what. Jesus was (and still is) exactly like that. He freely gave up the glory of Heaven and became a man precisely to be with us, to share the kind of life we live with its joys as well as its struggles, and then even more so to die for us. And beyond that, He has promised to remain with us until the end of time and to send the Holy Spirit, whom He called “power from on high”, to dwell within us so that we would never feel helpless and abandoned by God! What more could He do to earn our trust? 

 Upon hearing all this we might be tempted to respond, "easier said than done!” And we’d be right because learning to let go and trust in God IS easier said than done. But the fact is that it CAN be done. But it’s not going to happen overnight. We also say, “anything worth having is worth working for” and this is surely true about a vibrant trust-based relationship with Jesus Christ. We need to work on deepening our personal relationship with Him through daily prayer from the heart, through becoming familiar with His word and deeds in the Gospels, and through the Eucharist in which He comes to abide within us. And as we work on this relationship we will gradually see that we ARE becoming more trustful, we ARE becoming more calm, and we ARE becoming more peaceful inside. We will grow in our experience of that “power from on high” which strengthens us to deal with all these many ups and downs of daily life. 

 But the thing to remember in all this is that Christ never ever pushes Himself into our lives against our will. He desires a relationship that is rooted in love and love demands freedom. So He waits to be freely asked and then once we invite Him in, His care and concern for even the smallest things in our lives become manifest in clearly discernible ways. This doesn’t mean that our issues and struggles will suddenly just disappear. Nor does it mean that our health or financial situation will change for the better overnight. But it does mean that God will see to it that our needs are met in one way or another because, believe it or not, He wants nothing more than to see us happy, both in this world and in the next.