Homily:
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord – Cycle C
The
new “Captain America” movie opened this weekend and it gave me pause to think
about how much we seem to love superheroes.
From Superman and Batman, to Spiderman, Wonder Woman, the X-men, Iron Man,
Captain America, and on and on and on, we seem to be fascinated with these
characters who have super-human capacities.
This is not limited to fantasy characters, however. In fact a whole industry called “professional
sports” is built on the fact that we like to watch men and women who seem to
have super-human capabilities demonstrate their skills.
There’s
a good reason for all of this (as I have already alluded to). Because we are bodily creatures, we are
rather limited in what we can do. Yet,
because we are also spiritual and rational creatures, we can know that an
unlimited life could exist; and since being unlimited is always better than
being limited, we lament the fact that we are limited and desire to transcend
those limits in any way possible.
Super-heroes and professional athletes give us a glimpse of a more
limit-less life—a life in which we transcend the natural limitations of our
bodies—and so we tend to idolize them (and, at least, are entertained by them).
The
weird thing about this is that, in practice, we seem to love our limitations…
in secret, at least. For example, many
of us might think it to be a heroic feat to run a marathon and may even aspire
to do so. But when it comes to giving up
our bodily comforts and putting in the work to do it, we tell ourselves that
it’s impossible for us and so we never even try. Our bodily comforts, you see, are a product
of our limitedness. If our bodies
weren’t limited in the amount of energy they produced, we wouldn’t need to
rest; and if we didn’t need to rest, we wouldn’t have any trouble getting out
of bed in the morning to do the necessary training. But, our bodies do need rest and rest feels
good, so we tell ourselves that we are “too limited” to do something as heroic
as run a marathon and so either never try or give up before we get too far.
But
lots of people run marathons! Generally
speaking, their bodies are no different than ours—in other words, they are born
just as limited as we are. The
difference is that those who run marathons have chosen to abandon the comfort
of their limitations and pursue limitlessness, instead. Many of us dream of being limitless (or we
try live it vicariously through super-heroes or athletes, at least): that is,
until it demands something of us. That’s
when we tend to fall away.
This
can creep into our lives a Christians, too.
Perhaps we have felt the urge to strengthen our faith and give ourselves
more fully to God. We dream big dreams
about time spent in prayer, studying Scripture, or serving the poor. Perhaps we even begin to dream about a specific
project that God has placed on our hearts—to start a support program for those
who dropped out of high school or a ministry to those who are divorced. We feel moved to begin it, but once we start
to imagine what it would take to realize our dreams, we come face to face with
our limitations once again and begin to make excuses.
Often,
we just want it done for us, don’t we? We
know Jesus’ words when he said “Anything that you ask of the Father in my name,
he will give you” and perhaps our love of our limitations causes us to think
“Well, I’ll just pray about it and leave it in God’s hands.” While there is nothing inherently wrong with
that (and it is an important first step), it fails to recognize the other
important step that we need to take: that we will often have work to do if we
wish to see God’s response to our prayers.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola famously once said: “Pray as if everything
depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.” What a great motto for our times: reminding us
that for all things we must truly depend on God, but that God will often use us
as an instrument for fulfilling his will, if only we would choose to work. And when we begin to work as if everything
depended on us, we will begin to find our capacity to transcend our limitations
and become more limit-less.
So
why talk about all of this today, on the Solemnity of the Ascension? Well, it’s because the Ascension reminds us
that the limits of our human nature can be overcome. When Jesus ascended into heaven in his human body, he showed us the
limitless potential of our human bodies.
No human body can just appear in locked rooms without opening a door or
vanish from sight without a trace.
Certainly, no human body can ascend into eternity: a space in which
there is no time, only the present. Yet
Jesus did all of those things and ascended into heaven in his human body—a
nature just like ours, only glorified—and in doing so he showed us the
limitless potential our human bodies possess.
If
we wish to tap into that potential, however, we are going to have to make some
choices. We are going to have to choose
to abandon the comforts that come with our limits and choose to “work as if
everything depends on us”. Could you
imagine Jesus’ Apostles trying to fulfill the mission that he gave them to “go
and make disciples” by prayer alone?
They knew that they had to work, too, if they wanted to fulfill Jesus’
command. But, they weren’t alone in
their work, were they? Before he
ascended, Jesus promised to send them the Spirit, who would give them power to
be his witnesses “to the ends of the earth”.
The Holy Spirit came to the Apostles on Pentecost and the result was
extraordinary. They truly transcended
their human limitations to witness to Jesus to the ends of the earth.
My
brothers and sisters, in this week between our celebration of Jesus’ Ascension
into heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, let us pray that
the Spirit will fill us with that same power to overcome our limitations as the
Apostles did and, thus, give the greatest glory to God that we can possible
give: our lives lived without limits in him.
Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – May 8th,
2016
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