This weekend we celebrated the (transferred) solemnity of the Ascension. The Church proclaims that in ascending above the highest heavens, Jesus did not do so to distance Himself from our lowly state (to which He has united to Himself) but so that we, His members, might be confident of following where He, our Head and Founder, has gone before. These words - proclaimed in the collect and preface of the Mass - remind us that rather than being a moment of loss, it is celebration of the joyful promise of what is to come.

That understanding, it seems to me, is hard-won among Christians. For the Apostles standing below, their hearts must have been torn (and how!) beween confusion and sadness. Having made it through three days of sorrow and loss after Christ's passion & death and successfully waded through the confusion and disbelief of His resurrection appearances, they could be forgiven for having thought that after a month and a half with the resurrected Lord, things were finally returning to some semblance of normality. And then Jesus literally just takes off!

Two weeks ago (the Fifth Sunday of Easter), eagle-eyed parishioners might have caught me hiding a bit of a smirk during the first reading. It was from the beginning paragraphs of the sixth chapter of Acts of the Apostles, ending with the sentence "even a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith". My imagination immediately ran wild with the incredulous tone of that text - even the PRIESTS were becoming obedient?!? And although the priests in question were the Jewish priests of Saint Luke's time, I couldn't help applying it to myself and the priests of our own time, who are quite often in need of renewal in both obedience and faith! When I got home on Sunday, I perhaps unreasonably delighted in creating something of a niche meme (above) from Pixar's The Incredibles, which captures well how the passage struck me.

That our faith (and obedience!) is regularly challenged is no surprise to any long-time follower of the Lord. I wonder if perhaps even the Apostles and early Christians didn't hear this passage with some wry  and self-deprecating humor - perhaps they even called to mind the doubts, struggles, and griefs they themselves had to surrender to the Lord! A shared experience from them to us, to be sure.

Little did I know that my own steadfastness would be challenged several days later, when my cat Qwerty - who entered my life just a couple months after I was ordained - came to the end of his own time here on earth. I've been a priest for nearly 17 years and a(n eagerly!) practicing Catholic for practically my entire life, but I wasn't ready for how such a simple - and somewhat expected, even - loss would impact me. 

Alongside my own modest grief (heavy though it feels!), I have found myself all the more sensitive to that of those around me - and there has been sadness aplenty. On that same day - albeit nearly 2000 miles away - my father joined his siblings and extended relatives to bury their mother. The next morning (Sunday), the grandfather of a friend died. That Sunday evening, another friend texted to share that his mother has been found to have advanced cancer and was anticipated to have only a brief time left with them. Half-way around the world, yet another friend continues his two-month Camino (the Via Lemovicensis) in honor and memory of his wife, the conclusion of which will mark the one-year anniversary of her death. And all of this held within a mere two days. Truly, we walk in the valley of tears.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled", Jesus tells His disciples. And how tender our hearts are, so easily troubled. In His care for us, Jesus does not leave us alone - in fact He says that He must go, so that the Advocate, Whom He is sending, will come to us. That Advocate, the Holy Spirit, guides us to all truth, and work through us in the world. And though He tells them - and us! - "a little while and you will no longer see me", He immediately follows those alarming words with reassurance: "and again a little while later and you will see me"! (John 16)

I am consoled by Jesus' sharing in our sorrows - and that He does not condemn us for the times when we grieve. Apparently anticipating that very thing, He goes on to say "amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy." It is normal - and okay - that we grieve here on earth, even as we hold fast to the confidence that it will not have the last word! The last Word (Who is also the first) has already won the victory towards which we still march.

This Sunday, along with Christians around the world, we will gather to celebrate that strange mix of sorrow, anticipation, and joy that is Pentecost. What a wondrous thing it is that we can proclaim Christ's death and profess His resurrection, all while anticipating His coming again. Confident in the Father's love, rejoicing in the presence of Christ in our midst, and sent forth in the Spirit, may we continue to proclaim the victory of Jesus over sin & death - and His promise not only of eternal life, but accompaniment through this life until we at last reach the destination He has set before us.