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Showing posts with the label The Ascension

Homily for the Ascension of the Lord, May 29, 2022, Year C

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Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) The nights are warm now. Sometimes I step outside and looking up marvel at all of those stars sprinkled all over the night sky. In such moments I have asked myself if there is another parallel universe that we don’t see, one that has other dimensions not subject to human measurements of time, space, weight and volume. I think there is. Because of Jesus Christ I am certain there is. A long time ago there lived in England a holy man named St. Bede. He lived from 673-735A.D. Among the things he wrote are the following words he penned while meditating on the death of loved ones. “We seem to give them back to you, O God, who gave them first to us. Yet as you did not lose them in giving, so we do not lose them by their return. Not as the world gives do you give. What you give you do not take away. For what is yours is also ours. We are yours and life is eternal. And love is immortal, and death is only a horizon, a

Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ | 2020

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August 6th, is the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. It was declared a universal feast by Pope Callixtus III in 1456 to commemorate the victory of Christian forces at the Siege of Belgrade. The Transfiguration is found in all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28–36 describe it, and 2 Peter 1:16–18 refers to it). It is the only miracle involving Jesus exclusively. Prefiguring His Ascension and manifesting His Divinity, Jesus, is transfigured, becoming resplendent in glory upon Mt. Tabor. At that moment, Christ's interior Divinity and Beatific soul overflowed His body, so that Jesus shone as bright as the sun. The apostles Peter, who according to Aquinas, loved Jesus the most, James, who was the first of the Apostles to die for his faith, and John, who the Lord loved especially, were the only eyewitnesses. From the Gospel of Mark: Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfig

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord | 2020

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The Ascension of Jesus When they had gathered together they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He answered them, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But 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."  When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.  They said, "Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven." — Acts 1; 6-11 ____________________________________________________ Forty days after his Res

Homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, May 24, 2020, Year A

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Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) God the Father inaugurated His presence among us when Abraham responded to Him in faith. The Nativity of Our Lord inaugurated God the Son’s presence among us when God’s self-expression became flesh and was born among us as one of us. This Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven inaugurates the time of God the Holy Spirit’s presence among us. Jesus Christ ascension into heaven opens the door to the Holy Spirit’s dwelling within those who have been baptized into the Body of Christ. Our Blessed Lord’s Ascension into heaven challenges us to see God in a new way. Christ’s ascension is not an ending, it’s a beginning. On the surface in appears that Christ’s Ascension is a departure, but actually it is not. Spirit-filled in His resurrection, Christ now comes to us in a new way – in His Holy Spirit. It is a new beginning. Christ in His humanity is now taken to a new status, the

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord | 2019

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The Ascension of Jesus When they had gathered together they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He answered them, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But 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."  When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.  They said, "Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven." — Acts 1; 6-11 ____________________________________________________ Forty days after his Res

Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter, May 26, 2019, Year C

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Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) God our Father has sent His Son to us not to condemn us but to show us that He loves us. He wants to save us, to save us by being joined into His Son and with His Son to return to Him, our Father in heaven. With that in mind, what is God telling us in His word for us today? All of us have had to face moments of departure and loss. Was it when we were desperately in love and then the one we loved left us? Was it when we graduated from school and then suffered separation from our dear friends? Was it when a spouse or a child went off to war somewhere? Was it when we had to take a job in a city far away? For those leaving it is a wrenching experience. For those left behind it is equally wrenching, perhaps even more so. The moments and days approaching departure are filled with terrible anxiety. Our hearts are filled with fear and sorrow. Such a time, experienced by Jesus’ closest friends, i

Bodily Redemption is Our Hope In Christ

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Most Reverend Robert J. Baker, S.T.D. Bishop of Birmingham, Alabama (Pastoral letter delivered May 29, 2015 as Bishop of Charleston)    The faith of Christians expressed fully by Roman Catholics includes belief in the redemption and resurrection of the body. We say as much in the Creed each week. We do not believe that we become angels when we die. We remain human beings, awaiting glorified bodies. As with our Great Redeemer, Jesus Christ, we have a human nature which we will have for all eternity. Some have called this a "muscular and robust theology," but in fact it is simply constant Catholic belief. We believe that our human bodies will be changed, glorified, and perfected, but that they will still be our bodies and recognizable as such in some fashion. The disciples knew Jesus after the resurrection even though it was his risen body which they saw. "And none of the disciples dared to ask him 'Who are you?' because they realized it was the Lord&

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

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The Ascension of Jesus When they had gathered together they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He answered them, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But 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."  When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.  They said, "Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven." — Acts 1; 6-11 ____________________________________________________ Forty days after his R

Pope St. Leo the Great on the Ascension of Christ

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St. Leo the Great's 1st Homily on the Ascension of Our Lord (Sermon 73, sec. IV) Christ's ascension has given us greater privileges and joys than the devil had taken from us Accordingly, dearly-beloved, throughout this time which elapsed between the Lord's Resurrection and Ascension, God's Providence had this in view, to teach and impress upon both the eyes and hearts of His own people that the Lord Jesus Christ might be acknowledged to have as truly risen, as He was truly born, suffered, and died. And hence the most blessed Apostles and all the disciples, who had been both bewildered at His death on the cross and backward in believing His Resurrection, were so strengthened by the clearness of the truth that when the Lord entered the heights of heaven, not only were they affected with no sadness, but were even filled with great joy. And truly great and unspeakable was their cause for joy, when in the sight of the holy multitude, above the dignity of all he

Ascension Sunday or Ascension Thursday?

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This week we have published two homilies simultaneously for the seventh Sunday in Easter. While some dioceses celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord on Thursday, others do so on the Sunday following. Father Alexander Lucie-Smith, a Catholic priest, doctor of moral theology and consulting editor of The Catholic Herald , wrote a thought provoking article " Celebrating the Ascension on a Sunday is a sad sign of creeping secularisation in the Church " (2012), stating: I have been away on retreat, staying in a strictly enclosed Benedictine monastery. On arrival I asked what was happening on the Thursday, and this is what I was told: 'Here we celebrate the Ascension on Thursday, by special permission. Celebrating it on Sunday would mean that the novena between Ascension and Pentecost would make no sense.' Fr. Lucie-Smith acknowledges not considering this aspect of novena prayer before. He continues, "Given that Ascension is on a Thursday and the fea

Homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, May 28, 2017, Year A

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Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) God the Father inaugurated His presence among us when Abraham responded to Him in faith. The Nativity of Our Lord inaugurated God the Son’s presence among us when God’s self-expression became flesh and was born among us as one of us. This Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven inaugurates the time of God the Holy Spirit’s presence among us. Jesus Christ ascension into heaven opens the door to the Holy Spirit’s dwelling within those who have been baptized into the Body of Christ. Our Blessed Lord’s Ascension into heaven challenges us to see God in a new way. Christ’s ascension is not an ending, it’s a beginning. On the surface in appears that Christ’s Ascension is a departure, but actually it is not. Spirit-filled in His resurrection, Christ now comes to us in a new way – in His Holy Spirit. It is a new beginning. Christ in His humanity is now taken to a new status, the

Saint Leo the Great on the Encounter with Christ on the Road to Emmaus

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The following homily by Pope Saint Leo the Great concerning Christ’s ministry during the 40 Days between his Resurrection and Ascension, focuses especially on his appearance and revelation to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Beloved, the days which passed between the Lord’s resurrection and his ascension were by no means uneventful; during them great sacramental mysteries were confirmed, great truths revealed. In those days, the fear of death with all its horrors was taken away, and the immortality of both body and soul affirmed. It was then that the Lord breathed on all his apostles and filled them with the Holy Spirit; and after giving the keys of the kingdom to blessed Peter, whom he had chosen and set above all the others, he entrusted him with the care of his flock. During these days, the Lord joined two of his disciples as their companion on the road, and by chiding them for their timidity and hesitant fears he swept away all the clouds of our uncertainty. Their lu

Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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August 22, 2016 Having observed the Feast of the Assumption of Mary on August 15th, when Christ took Mary up into heaven, we now celebrate her Queenship over all creation. It is important to distinguish between the Ascension of our Lord who rises to his heavenly enthronement by the power of his own Divinity and the Assumption of Mary. Mary did not ascend under her own power. She is assumed into heaven by the power of her Son through the Holy Spirit. Moreover, our Lady’s Assumption is a means to the end of her coronation and Queenship. Mary functions not only as the Mother of Christ, ( Luke 1 ) but also as the mother of all of the children of God ( Revelation 12:17 ). Exercising her maternal love, she intercedes unceasingly on behalf of those who keep the commandments of Christ. Pope Pius XII’s encyclical letter,  Ad Caeli Reginam , establishing the Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary notes in part: "Let all, therefore, try to approach with greater trus

Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ

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August 6th, is the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. It was declared a universal feast by Pope Callixtus III in 1456 to commemorate the victory of Christian forces at the Siege of Belgrade. The Transfiguration is found in all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28–36 describe it, and 2 Peter 1:16–18 refers to it). It is the only miracle involving Jesus exclusively. Prefiguring His Ascension and manifesting His Divinity, Jesus, is transfigured, becoming resplendent in glory upon Mt. Tabor. At that moment, Christ's interior Divinity and Beatific soul overflowed His body, so that Jesus shone as bright as the sun. The apostles Peter, who according to Aquinas, loved Jesus the most, James, who was the first of the Apostles to die for his faith, and John, who the Lord loved especially, were the only eyewitnesses. From the Gospel of Mark: Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transf

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord | 2016

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Today, May 5th, the ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, and Philadelphia celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord . All other provinces have transferred this solemnity to the Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 8th. +++ At the end of His earthly life Jesus ascends triumphantly into heaven. The Church acclaims Him in His holy humanity, invited to sit on the Father's right hand and to share His glory. But Christ's Ascension is the pledge of our own. Filled with an immense hope, the Church looks toward her leader, who precedes her into the heavenly home and takes her with Him in His own person: "for the Son of God, after incorporating in Himself those whom the devil's jealousy had banished from the earthly paradise, ascends again to His Father and takes them with Him" (St. Leo).

Why Satan Hates the Ascension of Christ

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Ascension , Copley, 1775 By Matthew Coffin Forty days after His Resurrection, Christ ascended into heaven. His Ascension marked the end of His earthly ministry. Having conquered sin and death, Jesus ascended to receive the glory due him [Philippians 2:8-11], mediate on our behalf [Hebrews 9:24], send the Holy Spirit promised at the Last Supper [John 16:7], and prepare a place for us in eternity [John 14:2]. Immediately following the Ascension, an angel informs the disciples that Christ’s Second Coming will occur in the same way. According to the Catechism [668], "Christ's Ascension into heaven signifies His participation, in His humanity, in God's power and authority." Our Lord’s Ascension bridges His Incarnation in humility with His coming again at the end of time as King and Supreme Judge of the universe. Since His Ascension, Christ’s glorified body has sat at the right hand of the Father. The divinization of Christ in His incarnate body has profound implica