Solemnity of the Ascension. "You will be my witnesses": Ascending to the right hand of the Father, Christ gives power to the Church

What happens far away impacts each one of us here and now.

Images of tornadoes, floods and other disasters are almost immediately available to the curious through telephones and the internet. We gain powerful impressions of their size and scope through the pictures of damaged homes and land and most tragic, lost lives.

With all the data that is available to us about these and other events and people in our world, what can often be lacking is the process of meditating on the meaning of these events. We were made to think and to seek understanding about our world and ourselves and without this process our humanity is incomplete. The sheer size and constant flood of the tsunami of images and news reports tends to prevent the needed process of meditating on the import and meaning of these things for us personally, thereby allowing us to move beyond our first instinctive fears aroused by these disasters toward a more serene sense of resolution.

For the full text of the homily for Ascension visit Meeting Christ in the Liturgy by clicking here.